SYNTAX

(Analyzing English:
An Introduction to
Descriptive Linguistics)

Howard Jackson
 GRAMMAR AND SENTENCES 1

Grammar
and Sentences

A linguistic description, and consequently a language, is often regarded as

being composed of three parts: phonetics/phonology, grammar and
semantics. And there is a sense in which grammar links phonology and
semantics: phonemes combine into words (phonology), words combine into
sentences (grammar), and sentences refer to events, actions and states in the
world (semantics). However, phonology and grammar are different from
semantics in that they deal exclusively with the internal structure of
language (form), while semantics is concerned largely with the external
relationships of language (meaning).

A. Phonology and grammar

The relationship between phonology and grammar is not as simple as has

been implied. There is no automatic progression from phoneme to word to
sentence. There are, in fact, two parallel sets of hierarchical relationships:
phoneme—syllable—word (—tone-group); morpheme—word—. . .—
sentence. It so happens that the unit ‘word’ occurs in both, and not without
 2 SYNTAX

reason. ‘Word’ is the level at which the greatest amount of congruence

found between units in phonology and units in grammar. For the majority of
phonological words there are equivalent grammatical words in a one-to-one
relationship. But there are several interesting cases that demonstrate the
separateness of the two sets of hierarchical relationships. These are cases
where there is no one-to-one match between phonological and grammatical
word.

The uneven match between phonology and grammar is well illustrated by

the so-called homophones, where different grammatical words have the
same phonemic structure or pronunciation. Take the phonological word
/baʊ/. It represents a number of lexical items (grammatical words): bough,
bow (of a boat), bow (verb, ‘to incline the head or body’), bow (noun,
‘inclination of the head or body’). Besides being homophones, the last three
items mentioned are also homographs, i.e. they are written the same. Or
take the phonological words /stænd/ and /maɪnd/: each of them represents
two grammatical words, one a noun and the other a verb. Uneven matching
between phonology and grammar is also found the other way round, though
more rarely. The past tense of the verb dream may be represented
phonologically as either /dremt/ or /dri:md/. And whether integral has the
phonological structure /ˈɪntǝɡrǝl/ or /ɪnˈtegrǝl/, it is still the same item as far
as the grammar is concerned.

The separateness of the phonological and grammatical sets of relationships

is sometimes referred to as the ‘double articulation’ of language. This
implies that language is patterned simultaneously on two levels: sound, ad
syntax. Phonemes pattern into words, words pattern into sentences, and the
link between the two levels occurs at the unit ‘word’. This, no doubt,
accounts for the importance that has been attached to words in the study of
language through the centuries, although the status of the word as the basic
unit of lexicography (dictionary making) must also be contributing factor to
its importance.

B. Grammar and dictionary

So grammar is different from phonology: it is concerned with the internal

structure of sentences (in terms of words), while phonology is concerned
with the way these sentences and words ‘sound’. But we need to
differentiate grammar from semantics also. If we want to, know what a
word ‘means’, we go to a dictionary, where, among other things, we expect
to find the ‘meaning’ or ‘definition’ of the word we are interested in. Let us
say that we came across the sentence The funnel was raking terribly, and
 GRAMMAR AND SENTENCES 3

we wanted to know the meaning of raking in this context. What we should

look up in the dictionary would be ‘rake’, not raking or was raking. And we
should find that the meaning was ‘of the funnel, slope towards the stern’.
Now, in the entry ‘rake’, some dictionaries would tell you that one of the
forms of ‘rake’ is ‘raking’, but raking would not have a separate entry in the
dictionary because it is merely an alternative form of rake, not a different
‘word’. Here, then, we can distinguish a third sense of the term ‘word’: the
word as an entry in the dictionary, sometimes called a lexeme, which may
have a number of grammatical forms or words. Thus big and bigger are
distinct words as far as the grammar is concerned, but they are forms of a
single lexeme and are both dealt with in a single dictionary entry. Each of
the three parts of our linguistic description—phonology, grammar,
semantics—deals with ‘words’, but in each case something slightly
different is meant, though of course something common is also implied. We
can see, once again, why words have held such an important place in
linguistic studies.

C. Grammar

The grammatical description of a language specifies the way in which

sentences in that language may be constructed: it gives the rules of sentence
structure. But what us meant by ‘rule’ here? What is not meant by ‘rule’ is
statements of the following kind: ‘A preposition is not a suitable word to
end a sentence with’, or ‘It is the height of bad grammar to begin a sentence
with ‘and’, ‘but’ or a number of other undesirable words’. As in a
phonological description, a grammatical description is charting what people
actually say rather than what the linguist thinks they ought to say. Now, in
the course of doing this for a particular language, the linguist will more than
likely find several different usages for one area of grammar or another. But
the core of the grammar will probably be the same. Different rules will be
found to operate in different regional areas, representing different dialects,
and in different kinds of communication: the grammar of scientific
textbooks will probably be somewhat different in particular features from
that of ordinary conversation or personal letters.

Grammatical descriptions, such as that made by Quirk and his co-authors in

A Grammar of Contemporary English, generally define which variety of the
language they are describing. This is usually what is called ‘general
educated usage’. (Variations from this variety may, however, be noted; in A
Grammar of Contemporary English attention is paid to the differences
between British and American educated usage.)
 4 SYNTAX

So grammatical rules are the descriptions of the regular ways in which

speakers of a particular language or language variety construct the
sentences in that language or variety. They are generalizations of what
happens, made from observing many specific instances and relating them to
one another. In a sense, therefore, there is no such thing as ‘bad’ grammar.
There may be ‘inappropriate’ grammar, that is, inappropriate for the style of
language required for the situation in which it is used. And there may be
‘deviant” grammar, when an adult makes a slip of the tongue, or when a
child or foreigner has not yet learnt the language completely, or when a
poet deliberately produces deviant sentences for effect. Though, of course,
you cannot know what is deviant until you know what is normal or accepted!

We use the term ‘grammar’ in at least two ways, illustrated by the

following sentences: His grammar is terrible. I must go and consult the
grammar. In the first we are referring to the speaker’s competence in the
language (or lack of it!), that is, what is stored in his brain. In the second we
are referring to what a linguist has written, which is a description of the first.
This description is not an exact representation of the speaker’s grammar
(which is what some linguists have suggested). We do not know how our
language competence is stored in the brain. We can only make deductions
about the system from what people say, and the description is an order, or a
model, imposed or inducted by the descriptive linguist.

D. Grammatical units

From our discussion so far in this chapter, it should be obvious that two
grammatical terms have been occurring fairly frequently; they are word and
sentence. In writing, these units are easily recognizable: a’ word is the unit
bounded either side by a space, and the sentence is the unit that stretches
from a beginning capital letter to a concluding full-stop. In speech, if such
was the only form of language we had, they would be more difficult to
identify, but the fact that they occur in writing implies that the native
speaker has some intuitive awareness of what is a word and what is a
sentence in his language.

In a sense, these two units—word and sentence—are basic to grammar,

though they are by no means the only units of grammatical structure, and
there is no direct relation between words and sentences. Neither are they the
smallest and largest units of grammar respectively: there are recognizable
units smaller than words, and units larger than sentences. However,
sentences do exhibit a structure that no larger unit, e.g. paragraph or
discourse, does. And larger units are discussed in terms of changes that take
place in sentences or of characteristic features of particular sentences: this is
 GRAMMAR AND SENTENCES 5

the area of textsyntax which we shall be considering in Chapters 15 and 16.

The units smaller than words are called morpheme, which we shall be
considering in Chapters 17 and 18. For the present let the following
examples serve as illustrations of the decomposability of words:

Nation-al-ize-d, tempt-ation-s, un-sympathe-tic, re-painting.

E. Phrase and clause

Now let us consider the statement made in the previous paragraph, that
words do not pattern directly into sentences. This implies that there are
some intervening levels of organization between word and sentence.
Consider the following sentence: The grand old man of letters stumbled
along the dimly lit road, but the pen which he had lost had been picked up
by a small boy. This sentence cannot be viewed simply as a concatenation
of words: The + grand + old + man + . . . etc. Some groups of words
belong more closely together than any of them do with any others, and
these longer stretches of word groups in turn form larger units. In this
sentence we can recognize the following word groupings: the grand old
man of letters, along the dimly lit road, the pen which he had lost, had been
picked up, by a small boy and stumbled belongs on its own. These word
groupings combine in turn into the following larger units: the grand old
man of letters stumbled along the dimly lit road and the pen which he had
lost had been picked up by a small boy. And then these two units are linked
together by but to form the complete sentence.

The intervening units between word and sentence are usually called phrase
and clause: phrases are equivalent to the ‘word groupings’ of the previous
paragraph, and clauses to the ‘larger units’. So words pattern into phrases,
phrases into clauses, and clauses into sentences. Or, from the alternative
perspective, a sentence is composed of one or more clauses, a clause is
composed of one or more phrases, and a phrase is composed of one or more
words. So the instruction Fire! is one word, one phrase, one clause, one
sentence. Our investigation of grammar will, then, be concerned with the
kinds of words, phrases, clauses and sentences that occur in contemporary
English, and with the rules for their structure and combination.

Finally, in this chapter, we must consider ways of representing the structure of

sentences. There are two conventional methods: bracketing, and tree diagrams.
In this book we shall be using tree diagrams, because they are easier to read
and decipher. But below, for illustration, are the bracketing and tree diagram
for the following sentence ‘S’ stands for sentence, ‘Cl’ for clause, ‘Ph’ for
phrase, and ‘Wd’ for word: John kicked the ball and Harry caught it.
 6 SYNTAX

Bracketing: S(Cl(Ph(Wd:John))(Ph(Wd:kicked))(Ph(Wd:the)(Wd:ball)))
and (Cl(Ph(Wd: Harry))(Ph( Wd:caught))(Ph( Wd: it)))

Figure 1: Tree diagram

Cl Cl

Ph Ph Ph Ph Ph Ph

Wd Wd Wd Wd Wd Wd Wd Wd

John kicked the ball and Harry caught it

Now here are the tree diagrams for three more sentences.

Cl

Ph Ph Ph

Wd Wd Wd Wd Wd Wd Wd Wd Wd

The fifty English tourists walked along the Great Wall

Cl Cl

Ph Ph Ph Ph Ph Ph Ph

Wd Wd Wd Wd Wd Wd Wd Wd Wd Wd Wd Wd Wd

If you write to the address they will send you a coloured brochure

Cl

Ph Ph Ph

Wd Wd Wd Wd Wd Wd Wd Wd Wd

The old lady has been anxious about her cats

GRAMMAR AND SENTENCES 7

EXERCISE 1

Analyze the following sentences into clauses, phrases and words,

representing your analysis by means of a tree diagram.

1. Go away!
2. Jim sold his bicycle to a friend.
3. Martha loves cats.
4. The two men were fishing for trout in the clear stream beside the
woodman’s cottage.
5. The committee elected the oldest member president for the coming
year.
6. Your apple pie looks really delicious.
7. Young Jim has been looking for tadpoles in the village pond.
8. She gave him a look which betokened trouble.
9. Old Mother Hubbard went to the cupboard to fetch her poor dog a
bone.
10. When she got there the cupboard was hare, and so the poor dog had
none.
 8 SYNTAX

Word Classes

One of the traditional ways of analyzing a sentence was known as ‘parsing’.

This involved identifying each word in the sentence and assigning it to the
appropriate ‘part of speech’, and saying what ‘form’ the word had. For
example, in the sentence The cows are in the field, cows would belong to
the part of speech called noun, and it would be in the ‘plural’ form; are
would be a verb, and have the third person plural form of the infinitive be;
and so on.

This kind of analysis derived from techniques used in the investigation of

the classical languages, Latin and Greek, where the endings of words give a
good deal of information about the syntactic function of words, i.e. their
particular job in the sentence. For instance, in the Latin sentence Puer amat
puellam (‘the boy loves the girl’), puer and puellam are identified as subject
and object of the sentence respectively simply because their endings (or
lack of them in the case of puer) assign them to a particular ‘case’
(nominative and accusative respectively), which is a mark of syntactic
function (subject or object). The particular kind of endings, in the case of
puer and puellam case endings; also indicate which part of speech the word
belongs to.
 WORD CLASSES 9

Since English does not have such an elaborate case system as Latin or
Greek, a parsing of English sentences does not yield nearly so much
syntactic information. Besides, underlying the technique of parsing is the
notion that sentences are made up of strings of words, and that each word
has a function in the sentence identifiable from its form. There is, then, no
notion of intervening levels, such as phrase and clause.

A. Definitions

However, the notion of ‘part of speech’ is still a useful one, though the term
word class is usually preferred these days. It is convenient to talk about
classes of words that have some characteristic or other in common.
Deciding which characteristics should be regarded as defining
characteristics for a particular word class is not easy. Traditionally, the parts
of speech had a ‘notional’ definition; for example, a noun was defined as
‘the name of a person, place or thing’, or a verb was called a ‘doing word’.
While these definitions have some validity, they were nevertheless too
loose and restricted to be very serviceable in a rigorous analysis. For
example, in the sentence His thumps became louder, ‘thump’ hardly falls
into the definition of noun as ‘the name of a person, place or thing’, it
seems rather to be a ‘doing word’; and became can hardly be called a
‘doing word’, since it refers to a quite passive process.

For the purposes of a scientific definition, a more watertight set of

characteristics was looked for, and these were found in the grammatical
characteristics of words. For example, a noun is often defined as a word that
typically inflects for plural number (cow—cows), functions as head of a
noun phrase (see Chapter 10), which typically functions as subject or object
of a clause (see Chapter 13). In other words, the definitions of the word
classes looked more the internal structure of language, rather than the
relation between language and the external world.

Now, while such a form of words as we have given for a noun above may
go some way towards providing a watertight definition of the word class, it
does not always help very much in aiding the recognition of different types
of words. For this, a notional characterization is far easier to apply, and it is
certainly possible to improve on the notional definitions of traditional
grammar. We could say, for example, that a noun generally refers to ‘things’
in the broadest sense, whether objects (table), activities (his hammering),
feelings (hatred), ideas (eternity), as well as people and places.
 10 SYNTAX

B. Open and closed classes

Word classes are generally divided into two broad groups: those which are
open classes and those which are closed classes. These terms refer to the
membership of the classes. For the closed classes the membership is fixed;
it is in general not possible to add new members. For the open classes the
opposite is the case: new members are being constantly added, as new
words are coined in science, technology, or by advertisers or sub-cultures.
The open classes of words are: noun, verbs, adjective, adverb; the closed
classes are: pronoun, numeral, determiner, preposition, conjunction. It
will be clear that the open classes bear the greatest load in terms of meaning,
in the sense of reference to things in the world, while the function of the
closed classes is oriented more towards internal linguistic relationships,
though this is by no means exclusively the case. Numerals obviously refer
to quantity in the external world, and prepositions refer to relations in time
and space.

Nouns

Nouns, as we have said, generally refer to ‘things’ in the broadest sense. If

we ‘have a noun for something, it implies that we view it as a ‘thing’ (a
process known as ‘reification’). For example, in English we have nouns for
thunder and lightning, whereas in Hopi, a North-American Indian language,
these concepts can only be expressed ‘by verbs.

The class of nouns is traditionally divided into a number of subclasses.

There is, first of all, a division into proper nouns, and common nouns.
Proper nouns refer to unique ‘things’, such as people, places or institutions
e.g. Robert Walpole, Cologne, The Guardian. Common nouns do not refer
to unique things: the noun plant does not refer to a unique object, but either
to a class of objects or to a specific instance of that class. Common nouns
are often subdivided into concrete nouns and abstract nouns. Concrete
nouns refer to perceivable objects in the world, while abstract nouns refer to
ideas, feelings, and ‘things’ of that kind. So table, bear, tree would be
concrete nouns; and truth, love, imagination would be abstract nouns.

A division which cuts across that between concrete and abstract nouns is
the division between countable and mass (or uncountable) nouns.
Countable nouns, as the label suggests, refer to objects that may be counted,
objects of which there may be more than one, e.g. box, six boxes. Mass
nouns are in principle uncountable, e.g. flour, bread, cheese, wine. Some
 WORD CLASSES 11

nouns may, in fact, be both countable and mass, depending on the context
in which they are being used, e.g. cake is a mass noun in He wants some
cake but a countable noun in She has baked six cakes. And some mass
nouns may be used as if they were countable nouns e.g. cheese in these five
cheeses from Switzerland or wine in those six wines of Alsace; but the
meaning is not simply a plurality of objects, but rather ‘a number of kinds
of objects’, i.e. five kinds of cheese and six kinds of wine. Mass nouns like
flour and bread can only be made countable by prefixing some expression
of measurement e.g. six spoonfuls of flour, five loaves of bread.

Verbs

Verbs generally refer to actions, events and processes e.g. give, happen,
become. They typically have a number of distinct forms: infinitive ((to)
walk), third person singular present tense (walks), past tense (walked),
present participle (walking), past participle (walked). The past participle is
usually the same as the past tense form, but for some verbs it is different e.g.
show has past tense showed and past participle shown; similarly give has
gave and given respectively.

The main division made among verbs is that between auxiliary verbs and
lexical verbs. Auxiliary verbs are a closed subclass and have a mainly
grammatical function. The subclass of auxiliary verbs includes be, have and
do in certain of the uses of these verbs, and additionally the modal verbs, in
can, could, will, would, shall, should, may, might, must and one or two
others.

Among lexical verbs a distinction is traditionally made between transitive

and intransitive verbs: transitive verbs are those that require an ‘object’
(see Chapter 13), while intransitive verbs are those that do not take an
object. Thus, go is an intransitive verb, since we cannot say ‘He went
something’ or ‘What did he go?’, while thump is a transitive verb, since we
can say Jim thumped Michael and Who/What did Jim thump?. A number of
verbs are both transitive and intransitive, depending on the context, e.g.
march is intransitive in The soldiers marched to the barracks but transitive
in The captain marched the soldiers to the barracks.

A further, more notional distinction is made among lexical verbs, the

distinction between dynamic verbs and stative verbs. Syntactically, the
dynamic verbs may enter the be + -ing construction e.g. They are speaking
Russian; whereas the stative verbs may not e.g. ‘They are knowing
Russian’. Speak is, then, a dynamic verb, but know is a stative verb.
 12 SYNTAX

Dynamic verbs may be further subdivided notionally into activity verbs

(drink, play, write), process verbs (grow, widen), verbs of bodily sensation
(ache, feel, itch), transitional event verbs (arrive, die, fall), and
momentary verbs (kit, jump, kick). And stative verbs are divided further
into verbs of inert perception and cognition (astonish, believe, imagine,
like) and relational verbs (belong to, contain, matter).

Adjectives

Adjectives typically amplify the meaning of a noun, either by occurring

immediately before it, as in the wide road, or by being linked to it by means
of a copula verb, as in The road is/became wide. For this reason adjectives
are often characterized as descriptive words.

Like verbs, adjectives may be divided into a dynamic and a stative

subclass; but whereas verbs are typically dynamic, adjectives are, typically
stative. Tall is a stative adjective, as in Jim is tall; careful is a dynamic
adjective, as in Jim is being careful.

A further subclassification of adjectives is that into gradable and non-

gradable adjectives. Gradable adjectives may be modified by certain
adverbs that indicate the intensity of what the adjective refers to e.g. very
careful, more beautiful. Most adjectives are gradable, but some are not e.g.
previous, shut. It is not possible to say ‘his more previous visit’ or ‘The
door was very shut’.

One further distinction sometimes made is that between inherent and non-
inherent adjectives. Inherent adjectives, which are the majority,
characterize the referent the noun directly e.g. a wooden cross, a new car.
Non-inherent adjectives, or non-inherent uses of adjectives do not exhibit a
direct characterization of the noun e.g. a wooden actor, a new friend. In this
case the actor is not made of wood, and the friend is not just created or
produced.

Adverbs

Adverbs represent a very diverse set of words. There are basically two
kinds; those which refer to circumstantial information about the action,
event or process, such as the time, the place or the manner of it, and those
which serve to intensify other adverbs and adjectives. The first group may
be illustrated by the following: yesterday, now; there, outside; carefully,
beautifully and the second group by very as in very hard, extremely as in
 WORD CLASSES 13

extremely uncomfortable, terribly as in terribly quietly. The composition of

the class of adverbs and their function will become clearer when we discuss
the adverb phrase in Chapter 12 and the adverbial clause in Chapter 14.

We turn now to the closed classes. Here there is less need for a notional
definition since very often the words involved have little or no reference to
external reality and in any case the exhaustive membership of each class
could he listed. We will attempt a characterization of each class,
nevertheless.

Pronouns

Pronouns, as the name implies, have the main function of substituting for
nouns, once a noun has been mentioned in a particular text.

There are several subclasses. The central subclass is that of personal

pronouns ( I, me, you, he, him, she, her, it, we, us they, them), along with
the reflexive pronouns (myself, yourself, himself etc) and the possessive
pronouns (mine, yours, his, hers, its, ours, theirs). With these pronouns a
distinction is made between first, second and third person, that is between
speaker (I), addressee (you), and other (he), and also between singular and
plural number (I—we, he—they etc). The singular/plural distinction does not,
however, operate for second person (you), which refers to just one or to
more than one addressee.

Another subclass is that of interrogative pronouns. These substitute in

questions not only for nouns, but also for adjectives and adverbs. This
subclass includes who, what, which, how, when, where, why, as in the
following examples: Who were you talking to?, What is the time?, Which
train are you catching?, How did the accident happen?, When are you
going on holiday?, Where have you left your umbrella?, Why did you hit
your sister?.

Relative pronouns substitute for nouns as elements in relative clauses (see

Chapter 10) and include who, which, whose, that and whom; e.g. the boy
who has lost his ball ....

Demonstrative pronouns also substitute for nouns, but they imply a gesture
of pointing, either to something in the situational context, or to some
previous or following language e.g. That is an interesting point, This is a
beautiful picture. The subclass of demonstrative pronouns includes this,
that, these, those. Finally, there is a subclass of indefinite pronouns, among
which are included all, many, few, everyone, anything, nothing etc. Again,
 14 SYNTAX

they substitute for nouns but at the same time express an indefinite quantity
of some ‘thing’.

Numerals

Numerals are of two kinds: ordinal and cardinal. Ordinal numerals, as the
name indicates, specify the order of an item and comprise the series first,
second, third, fourth and so on. Cardinal numerals do not specify order, but
merely quantity, and comprise the series one, two, three, four etc.

Determiners

Determiners are a class of words that are used with nouns and have the
function of defining the reference of the noun in some way. The class is
divided into two broad groups, identifiers and quantifiers. The subclass of
identifiers includes the articles, i.e. indefinite article a/an and the definite
article the; the possessives my, your, his, her, its, our, their; and the
demonstratives this, that, these, those. The last two groups often called
possessive adjectives and demonstrative adjectives, to distinguish from the
possessive and demonstrative pronouns. Demonstratives in fact have the
same class membership as demonstrative pronouns. The identifiers may be
illustrated by the following examples: a book, the cow, my pencil, those
sheep. Quantifiers are expressions of indefinite quantity, and this class has
some members in common with that of indefinite pronouns. Among the
quantifiers are included a lot of, many, few, several, little etc and they may
be illustrated by the following examples: a lot of cheese, few ideas, little
comfort.

Prepositions

Prepositions have as their chief function that of relating a noun phrase to

another unit, The relationship may be one of time (e.g. after the meal),
place (e.g. in front of the bus) or logic (e.g. because of his action). Many
prepositions may be used to express more than one of these relationships
e.g. from in from the beginning, from the house, from his words.

he other function of prepositions is to be tied to a particular verb or

adjective and to link that verb or adjective with its object. In this case the
preposition cannot be said to have any special meaning of its own e.g. for in
They are waiting for the bus, and about in He is anxious about his future.
 WORD CLASSES 15

Conjunctions

Conjunctions, as their name implies, also have a joining function, usually

that of joining one clause to another, but sometimes also of one noun to
another. They are of two kinds: co-ordinating conjunctions, such as and, or,
but, which join two items on an equal footing; and subordinating
conjunctions, such as when, if, why, whether, because, since, which
subordinate one item to another in some way. The subordination may be
one of time, as in He will come when he is ready, or one of reason, as in He
cannot come because he is ill, or some other kind (see further Chapter 14).

EXERCISE 2

Identify the word class (noun, verb, adjective, adverb, pronoun, numeral,
determiner, preposition, conjunction abbreviated to N, V, adj, adv, pron,
num, det, prep, conj) to which each word in the following sentences belongs.

e.g. After (conj) they (pron) had (V) visited (V) the (det) British (adj)
Museum, (N) the (det) twenty (num) foreign (adj) visitors (N) made (V)
their (det) way (N) quickly (adv) to (prep) the (det) Houses (N) of (prep)
Parliament (N).

1. When April with his sweet showers has pierced the drought of March
to the root, then people wish to go on pilgrimages.
2. Hardly knowing what she did, she picked up a little bit of stick, and
held it out to the puppy.
3. Alice looked at the jury-box, and saw that, in her haste, she had put
the Lizard in head downwards, and the poor little thing was waving its
tail about in a melancholy way, being quite unable to move.
4. To gain the maximum amount of fruit from a strawberry bed a certain
amount of attention is needed now.
5. By this time of year most of us are viewing our flower borders with a
fairly critical eye, noting spaces where improvements can he made.
 16 SYNTAX

Phrases 1:
Noun Phrases

A. Types of phrase

In Chapter 8 we saw that words did not combine directly to form sentences,
but that there were two intermediate levels of syntactic organization. Words
pattern into phrases. This means that phrases may be described in terms of
the kinds or classes of words that function in them, and of the order in
which the words or classes of words are arranged relative to each other.
Five types of phrase are recognized in English: noun phrase, verb phrase,
adjective phrase, adverb phrase, and prepositional phrase. The first four
of these take their name from the word that is the chief word or head of the
phrase. The prepositional phrase is different in that there is no head word.
For the other types of phrase the minimal form of the phrase is the head.
For example, in the clause Lions become ferocious nightly, we have a noun,
verb, adjective, adverb sequence; and each of these words is in turn the sole
constituent and head of the corresponding phrase, i.e. noun phrase, verb
phrase, adjective phrase and adverb phrase. A prepositional phrase, on the
other hand, is always composed of two elements, a preposition and a noun,
or rather noun phrase, e.g. at night, in the jungle. In this chapter we shall be
 PHRASES 1: NOUN PHRASES 17

considering the structure of noun phrases, in the following one the structure
of verb phrases, and in Chapter 12 the structure of adjective phrases, adverb
phrases and prepositional phrases.

B. Noun phrase

The noun phrase in English is composed potentially of three parts. The

central part of the noun phrase, the head, is obligatory: it is the minimal
requirement for the occurrence of a noun phrase. The other two parts are
optionally occurring. The head may be preceded by some pre-modification,
and it may be followed by some post-modification. For example, in the
noun phrase that old car in the drive, car constitutes the head—it is the
primary reference of the phrase; that old is the pre-modification, and in the
drive the post-modification.

C. Heads

The most usual kind of head of a noun phrase is a noun, like car in the
example above. Alternatively, the head may be a pronoun of some kind,
very commonly a personal pronoun, e.g. he in He is there. Other kinds of
pronoun functioning as head of a noun phrase include: indefinite pronoun,
e.g. someone in Someone called; possessive pronoun, e.g. mine in Mine are
green; demonstrative pronoun, e.g. this in This beats everything. When a
pronoun functions as head of a noun phrase, it usually occurs without any
kind of modification: pre-modification is virtually impossible for pronouns,
though post-modification may occasionally be found, e.g. he who hesitates.
There is also a restriction on the modification that may be found with
proper nouns, i.e. those referring to unique persons and things: again post-
modification is possible, while pre-modification rarely occurs, e.g. Lovely
Morecambe, which we visited last year.

C. Pre-modification

The pre-modification in a noun phrase consists of a number of word classes

or sub-classes in a specific order: identifiers—numeral/quantifier—
adjective—noun modifier, as for example in the noun phrase these five
charming country cottages.

The class of identifiers includes articles (‘a’, ‘the’), demonstratives (‘this’,

‘that’) and possessives (‘my’, ‘your’, ‘his’, etc); and they come before any
numerals or indefinite quantifiers that may be present, e.g. those fifty
postage stamps, the many enquiries, her first attempt. Only one identifier
 18 SYNTAX

may occur in any noun phrase; that is to say, articles, demonstratives and
possessives are mutually exclusive in English. It is not possible to say ‘the
my book’ or the like; and the sequence this my book in fact consists of two
noun phrases in apposition, with this being a demonstrative pronoun
functioning as head of the first noun phrase: indeed, in writing, it would be
usual to write the sequence with a comma between the two noun phrases—
this, my book. If one wishes to combine article or demonstrative identifier
with possessive, then an ‘of’-phrase with the possessive pronoun must be
used, e.g. the/this book of mine.

More than one numeral/quantifier may however, occur in a noun phrase,

though there is a restricted number of possible combinations. Favourite
sequences are ordinal numeral (especially ‘first’ and ‘last’)+ indefinite
quantifier, e.g. the first few hours; ordinal + cardinal, e.g. the second five
days; and indefinite quantifier + cardinal numeral (especially round
numbers), e.g. several thousand people, many scores of ants.

There is a small group of words which may occur before the identifier in a
noun phrase, which are sometimes called pre-determiners. They also have
a quantifier reference, and the most common members of this class are ‘all’,
‘both’ and ‘half’, together with fraction numerals (‘one-third of’, etc); e.g.
both/all the desperate terrorists. The linguistic function of the identifiers is
to indicate the status of the noun phrase in relation to its linguistic and
situational context; this is basically a textual function, and we shall return to
consider the identifiers from this point of view in more detail in Chapter 16.

Adjectives, whose function is to amplify the head noun in some way, come
after the identifiers and numerals/quantifiers. Several adjectives, or none at
all, may occur in a noun phrase, and when a number of adjectives do occur
there appears to be some principle of ordering at work. For example, native
speakers regard the big red fox as grammatical, but the red big fox as
deviant. Likewise in the following noun phrase, the order given appears to
be the normal one and any deviation from it is in some way abnormal; a
charming small round old brown French oaken writing desk. It is often
assumed that the ordering is according to the semantic category of the
adjective, although it is not clear that it is necessarily always the case or that
the ordering is entirely rigid. In the above example, the categories
represented are: 1. epithet (charming), 2 size (small), 3. shape (round), 4.
age (old), 5. colour (brown), 6. origin (French), 7. substance (oaken), 8


These categories are based on those in R A Close’s A Reference Grammar for Students
of English Longman, 1975.
 PHRASES 1: NOUN PHRASES 19

present participle (writing); and then these might be followed by other

adjectives of the type medical and social, which are denominal (i.e. derived
from nouns). It is, of course, unusual for all the possible positions to be
filled, except in a linguist’s concocted example!

Between adjectives and the head noun come noun modifiers. Thus nouns
may function not only as heads of noun phrases, but, also as modifiers in
the noun phrase, e.g. a country garden, the village policeman, the news
agency. It is unusual for more than one noun modifier to occur in a noun
phrase (c.f. the village action group): in a noun phrase like the child safety
harness, child modifies the whole of safety harness, so that harness is
modified in the first instance by just safety; similarly in the noun phrase the
child poverty action group, child modifies poverty, and child poverty
together with action modify group. Noun modifier + head noun
constructions are often the first stage in the formation of compound nouns
(see Chapter 18). A word like flycatcher probably started off as fly catcher
(i.e. noun modifier + noun) before progressing, in writing at least, to fly-
catcher and ultimately to flycatcher; c.f. armchair, lifestory, dishcloth.

There is one further kind of pre-modifier that we have not yet mentioned
and which we did not include in the earlier list. This is a noun phrase in
the genitive case, appearing in the pre-modification of another noun phrase,
e.g. this delightful old gentleman’s scruffy bowler hat. This is analyzed as:
noun phrase genitive (this de1ightful old gentleman’s), adjective (scruffy),
noun modifier (bowler), head noun (hat). Noun phrases in the genitive are
marked by an ’s added to their final word, and often, though not always,
indicate possession; for this reason they are more commonly found with
animate nouns as head than inanimate nouns (c.f. the ship’s red funnel, ?the
bicycle’s low saddle, ?the car’s open window). The noun phrase genitive
may be considered to be substituting for a possessive identifier (my, your,
her, etc) in the noun phrase in which it occurs as pre-modifier, e.g. in the
example above his scruffy bowler hat. Clearly, the noun phrase genitive
may in turn be subject to analysis like any other noun phrase, e.g. this
(identifier), delightful (adjective), old (adjective), gentleman (head noun); ’s
(genitive marker).

EXERCISE 3

Make an analysis of the following noun phrases in terms of the word classes
that they comprise.

e.g. Those (ident) delicious (adj) ice-creams (head); my brother’s (NP gen)
first (num) two (num) nephews (head); my (ident) brother (head) ’s (gen)
 20 SYNTAX

1. Five green bottles

2. My third currant bun
3. Jim’s many fatal mistakes
4. All our many grievous sins
5. An ugly large yellow submarine
6. Plenty of delicious rice pudding
7. This mischievous tax collector’s grabbing hand
8. His underrated musical talent
9. Her blue collapsible silk umbrella
10. All our relations’ dirty screaming offspring

D. Post-modification

The post-modification position in a noun phrase is most commonly filled

not by specific word classes or subclasses, but by phrases or clauses. Three
kinds of phrasal/clausal post-modification occur: relative clauses, non-
finite clauses, and prepositional phrases. Additionally, it is possible for an
adjective or an adverb to function as a post-modifier in a noun phrase.

Adjective post-modification is found usually with indefinite pronouns as

head: these cannot be pre-modified by adjectives; e.g. something strange,
somebody brave. Adjectives do not normally come after nouns, except in a
few set phrases (probably copied from French), e.g. blood royal, heir
apparent. Adverbs are rather more frequently found as post-modifiers in
noun phrases, e.g. the time before, the room above, the morning after, the
bus behind. These examples could possibly be regarded as reductions of a
prepositional phrase, e.g. the time before this one, the room above us; and it
seems that the most usual kind of post-modifying adverb is one that may
function alternatively as a preposition (e.g. back, in front (of), below, etc).

A relative clause, which is discussed further in Chapter 14, is a full clause,

one of whose members (i.e. phrases) consists of a relative pronoun as head,
which refers back to the head noun of the noun phrase in which it occurs as
a post-modifier. For example. in the noun phrase the man who came here
yesterday, the relative clause is who came here yesterday, with who as the
relative pronoun which refers back to the head man, and which is the
subject noun phrase (see Chapter 13) within the relative clause. Compare
this with the noun phrase the man who(m) I saw yesterday, where who(m) is
a relative pronoun functioning as object in the relative clause. The relative
pronouns who and whom are used to stand for heads that refer to persons;
which is used for non-humans, and that may be used for both. In addition,
there is a ‘genitive’ relative pronoun whose, as in the man whose car was
stolen, which functions like an NP genitive within one of the noun phrases
 PHRASES 1: NOUN PHRASES 21

of the relative clause. Whose is generally regarded as the genitive form of

who (i.e. = of whom), but it may also be used with non-human head nouns,
e.g. the car whose windows were broken. Some native speakers, however,
prefer to avoid whose with non-human heads, but the alternative (of which)
sounds formal and cumbersome. e.g. the car the windows of which were
broken or the car of which the windows were broken. If the relative pronoun
is functioning as object in the relative clause, then it may be omitted, e.g.
the man I saw yesterday, where the relative clause is who(m)/that I saw
yesterday.

A further type of relative clause is one involving comparison, e.g. She buys
more clothes in a month than I buy in a year. Here the relative clause is the
than-clause, and the equivalent of the relative pronoun is the than, which
refers back to the quantifier more in the noun phrase. In the clause She buys
more expensive clothes than she can afford, the more expresses the
comparative degree of the adjective, and the than now refers back to the
comparative adjective. A superlative adjective as pre-modifier may be
followed by a relative clause introduced by that, e.g. the most expensive
clothes (that) she can afford: in this instance, as the that functions as object
in the relative clause, it may be omitted.

Non-finite clauses are clauses usually without subjects, introduced by a

non-finite form of the verb. There are, therefore, three kinds of non-finite
clause, according to the form of the verb that introduces them: infinitive
clause, e.g. to answer this question; present participle clause, e.g. coming
down the road; and past participle clause, e.g. expected to arrive at any
moment. Besides being able to substitute for noun phrases as subject or
more usually object of a clause (see Chapter 14), non-finite clauses may
function in the post-modification of a noun phrase, e.g. in the following
noun phrases: the man to answer this question; the car coming down the
road; the woman expected to arrive at any moment. Non-finite clauses can
often be regarded as reductions of relative clauses, e.g. the man who should
answer this question, the car which is coming down the road, the woman
who is expected to arrive at any moment. It will be noted that the present
participle clause relates to a progressive form (‘be’ + -ing) of the verb, and
the past participle clause to a passive form (‘be’ + -ed) in the relative clause
(see Chapter 11 for explanation of ‘progressive’ and ‘passive’). While a
past participle clause is always linked to a passive and is thus restricted to
transitive verbs, a present participle clause is not always relatable to a
progressive form, though it always relates to an active; e.g. Someone
knowing the circumstances is related to someone who knows the
circumstances, not to ‘someone who is knowing….
 22 SYNTAX

For present and past participle clauses as post-modifiers in noun phrases the
implied subject is the head of the noun phrase, i.e. the car in the car coming
down the road, the woman in the woman expected to arrive at any moment.
For infinitive clauses, however, the implied subject is not always the head
of the noun phrase. Clearly it is so in the man to answer this question; but
not in the man to ask about this question, which can be related to something
like Everybody/You should ask the man about this question. It is also
possible to insert a specific subject by means of a for-phrase, e.g. a good
man for Harry to see about his problem.

The most frequently occurring kind of post-modifier in a noun phrase is a

prepositional phrase, the structure of which is discussed in Chapter 12.
Examples of, post-modifying prepositional phrases are: the man after me, in
which after me is the prepositional phrase as post-modifier; the man in the
queue on the boat, in which in the queue on the boat is post-modifier to
man, and on the boat is post-modifier to queue. The full range of
prepositions is used to introduce post-modifying prepositional phrases. Like
non-finite clauses, prepositional phrases may be related to a fuller relative
clause, very often with the verb be, e.g. the man who is after me, the man
who is in the queue which is on the boat. Verbs other than be are, however,
implied in the newspaper as a propaganda instrument, the man of the hour,
the girl with freckles.

One striking fact about these different kinds of phrasal/clausal post-

modification emerging from our discussions is the degree of explicitness
associated with each of them. As one passes from relative clauses through
non-finite clauses to prepositional phrases, so one finds a gradation from
most to least explicit; c.f. the cow which is standing in the meadow, the cow
standing in the meadow, the cow in the meadow.

EXERCISE 4

Analyse the following noun phrases in terms of the word classes or

subclasses or other kinds of phrase or clause that comprise them.

e.g. the (ident) bleak (adj) landscape (head) covered in snow (post-mod
non-fin cl); the (ident) sixth (num) ballpoint (N mod) pen (head) that I have
broken (post-mod rel cl).

1. the old cupboard with the blue handles

2. all the coal stacked outside the back door
3. the third unpleasant task to be assigned to me
4. the fourth place behind Jim
PHRASES 1: NOUN PHRASES 23

5. the major upset of the year

6. the clearest instructions that anybody could have been given
7. this sudden disaster approaching us
8. all the eighty elderly passengers in the front coach
9. several irate gentleman farmers waiting for the prime minister
10. a poor little boy who seems to be lost.
 24 SYNTAX

Phrases 2:
Verb Phrases

A. Structure

In the verb phrase all the elements are verbs of one kind or another. In
Chapter 9 we made a distinction between auxiliary verbs and lexical verbs.
A verb phrase contains one lexical verb as head and may have up to four
auxiliary verbs, besides the negative word not, as modifiers. The lexical
verb is always the last element in the verb phrase; e.g. may not have been
being interrogated, in which the lexical verb is interrogate and the other
elements auxiliary verbs together with not.

The lexical verb carries the primary reference of the verb phrase, relating to
an action, process or event in extralinguistic reality. The lexical verb may
be composed of more than one (orthographic or phonological) word,
especially in the case of ‘phrasal’ and ‘prepositional’ verbs. For example,
in the sequence she is looking after her aged mother, the lexical verb is
most conveniently considered to be look after. And in the sequence he must
have looked up the word in the dictionary, the lexical verb is look up. Look
 PHRASES 2: VERB PHRASES 25

after is an example of a prepositional verb: the preposition is the only one

possible in the context and it always comes immediately after the verb word.
Look up, on the other hand, is a phrasal verb: the adverb particle up may
come either before or after an object which is a noun, c.f. he must have
looked the word up; and it must come after if the object is a pronoun, e.g. he
must have looked it up not ‘he must have looked up it’. Multi-word verbs
also include so-called phrasal-prepositional verbs, which include both an
adverb particle and a preposition, e.g. put up with, look down on.

Among auxiliary verbs we distinguish between primary auxiliaries (be,

have, do) and modal auxiliaries (can, may, will, must, etc.). Auxiliary verbs
serve to realize the grammatical categories associated with the verb phrase,
especially tense, aspect and mood (see below for discussion of these
categories). The modal auxiliary, of which there may be only one in a verb
phrase, always comes first if it is present and is followed by the infinitive
(without to) form of the verb, e.g. he may come, they can stay. The negative
word always takes up second position. The primary auxiliary be has two
uses; have has one. Be is followed by the present participle (-ing form of the
verb) to indicate progressive (alternatively called continuous) aspect, as in
he is coming, she was going. Be is followed by the past participle (-ed form
of the verb) to indicate passive voice, as in it is finished, it was eaten. Have
is followed by the past participle (-ed form of the verb) to indicate perfect
or perfective aspect, as in he has gone, they had eaten.

When combinations of auxiliary verbs occur, the verb form that a particular
auxiliary requires is taken by the verb immediately following the auxiliary
in question, whether that verb is a lexical verb or an auxiliary verb. The
relative order among auxiliary verbs is as follows:

modal—have—be (progressive)—be (passive)

And the forms they require are, then, as follows: modal requires infinitive,
have requires past participle, be (progressive) requires present participle,
and be (passive) requires past. participle. Which form the lexical verb has
depends on the immediately preceding auxiliary.

Here are some examples of verb phrase with combinations of auxiliary

verbs:

he has been going (have-perfective + be-progressive)

he had been being examined (have-perfective + be-progressive + be-
passive)
he will not have been being interviewed (modal + negative + have-
perfective + be-progressive + be-passive).
 26 SYNTAX

The first auxiliary in a verb phrase is called the operator, and has a number
of special functions:

1. The operator is the element in the verb phrase that is marked for tense;
that is, the distinction between ‘past’ and ‘present’ (see below). If there
is no auxiliary in the verb phrase, then the lexical verb itself is marked
for tense. Examples: he is coining, he was coming; she has gone, she
had gone; he walks, he walked.

2. The operator changes places with the subject of a clause in most

questions; for example, is she coming?, What has she been doing?,
Where will she be coming from?, but c.f. Who has seen her? where the
wh-word (interrogative pronoun) is the subject of the clause and comes
first like all wh-interrogatives.

3. The negative word not is placed immediately after the operator and
before any other auxiliaries; for example, he has not come, she may not
be staying. A contracted form of the negative word may occur in this
position, joined in writing to the operator; for example, he isn’t coming,
she mightn’t be saying, they won’t be needed.

4. The operator is the item that is repeated in a tag question. Tag questions
are ‘tagged on’ to a statement clause and request confirmation or
disconfirmation of the statement. Examples: he is coming, isn’t he?, she
hasn’t been seen, has she?, they can’t have been interviewed yet, can
they?.

5. The operator is the item in the verb phrase that is usually able to take
contrastive stress; for example, he IS coming, she HAS been seen, they
CAN’T have been interviewed.

If there is no auxiliary (modal, be or have) in the verb phrase in a clause

that is a question or is negated, or has a tag question, or in which the verb
phrase carries contrastive stress, then the auxiliary verb do must be used. As
an auxiliary, this is the sole use of do: to be there in instances where an
auxiliary IS needed but where one is not present (i.e. in case 2 to 5 listed
above when there is n other operator). Following are examples based on the
clause: She likes cream cakes:

2. Does she like cream cakes?, not ‘Likes she cream cakes?’
3. She doesn’t like cream cakes, not ‘She likes not cream cakes’
4. She likes cream cakes, doesn’t she?, not ‘…, likesn’t she’ or ‘…,
likes she not’.
5. She DOES like cream cakes, rather than ‘She LIKES cream cakes’.
 PHRASES 2: VERB PHRASES 27

It should be pointed out that the primary auxiliaries (be, have, do) may also
be used as lexical verbs. Or, to put it another way, there are (at least) two
verbs be, have and do: the auxiliary be etc and the lexical be etc. Here are
examples of be, have and do used as lexical verbs:

Bert is an engineer, She is having a lot of visitors, He is doing his

homework. Thus, if it is the last item in a verb phrase, be, have or do is a
lexical verb; if it is followed by another verb in the same verb phrase it will
be an auxiliary verb.

B. Non-finite verb phrases

All the verb phrases that we have considered so far have been finite verb
phrases; that is, they have contained a finite form at the verb, showing tense
distinction between ‘past’ and ‘present’, and being associated with a
particular subject (first, second or third person, singular or plural). This
function is performed by the operator or by the lexical verb if there is no
auxiliary present. Non-finite verb phrases are those that consist of non-
finite forms of the verb, i.e. the infinitive form (usually with to), the present
participle, or the past participle, as for example in:

I want to go home, Going along the road…, Fixed up with the necessary
cash… respectively. Present participle, and infinitive non-finite verb
phrases may also contain auxiliary verbs, but these must also be in a non-
finite form (infinitive or participle). Modal verbs do not occur in non-finite
verb phrases; they do not, in any case, have non-finite forms. The type
(infinitive, present, participle) of the non-finite verb phrase is indicated by
the form of the first member. Thus a present participle non-finite verb
phrase may contain a have auxiliary, as in Having gone along the windy
road…; and it may contain alternatively or additionally a be-passive
auxiliary, as in Being encouraged by the crowd…, Having been asked about
his identity…. The infinitive verb phrase may contain a be-passive, e.g. He
wants to be fed; it may alternatively contain a be-progressive, e.g. They
want to be going; and it may contain a have-perfective, e.g. He likes to have
shaved before 8.00 am. Have and be-passive appear to be able to combine
in an infinitive verb phrase, e.g. He regrets not to have been consulted. This
example also illustrates that a non-finite verb phrase is negated by
positioning the not first in the phrase.

C. Tense

The grammatical category of tense is related to real-world time. Time is

divided into past, present and future; and many languages have tenses
 28 SYNTAX

marked in the verb phrase corresponding to these divisions. In English there

is a clear distinction marked between past tense and present tense, e.g.
walk(s)—walked, show(s)— showed. In fact it is the past tense that is
marked, in its regular form by -ed (see further Chapter 13), and the present
is marked only in the third person singular, by means of the -s ending.

The past tense forms of the verb phrase nearly always refer to actions and
events in past time. But the reference of present tense forms is not nearly
so straightforward. Simple present tense forms, e.g. walks(s), show(s), may
be used for:

‘eternal truth’, e.g. the earth is round

habitual actions, e.g. Bill jogs every evening
present actions in a commentary, e.g. Lilley comes in, bowls, and
Boycott hits it for six
future actions, e.g. Harry flies to New York tomorrow.

In the case of habitual actions and future actions the reference to ‘habit’ and
‘future’ is by means of the adverbial expressions, e.g. every evening,
tomorrow; but the form of the verb phrase used is present tense. Arguably,
in a few uncommon cases, a present tense verb may refer to an action or
event in past time, e.g. I hear that you’ve had an accident, where hear is a
present tense form ‘but presumably refers to a past event. To refer to
actions going on at the present moment in time, it is usual to use a present
progressive form of the verb (see below), e.g. I am washing my hair.

What of the future? Clearly, a future tense is not marked in the verb in the
way that past tense is. It is generally thought, however, that the future tense
in English is formed by means of the (modal) auxiliary shall/will followed
by the infinitive of the lexical verb, e.g. I shall/will come tomorrow. But
while this may be the most frequent way of referring to future events, it is
by no means the only way. In this sense there is no future tense in English,
merely a number of ways of referring to future time. Among these ways are
the following:

shall/will + infinitive, e.g. We shall/will visit the museum tomorrow

present progressive, e.g. We are visiting the museum tomorrow
be going to + infinitive, e.g. We are going to visit the museum
tomorrow
simple present, e.g. We visit the museum tomorrow
be to + infinitive, e.g. We are to visit the museum tomorrow.

As is evident from these examples, none of the ways of referring to the

future does so in a totally neutral manner: talking about the future
 PHRASES 2: VERB PHRASES 29

inevitably involves talking at the same time about intentions, plans,

certainty and uncertainty.

D. Aspect

The grammatical category of aspect relates to the way in which the action
or event referred to by the lexical verb is regarded, particularly in respect of
its extension in time. In English there are two pairs of distinctions to be
drawn: a verb phrase may be regarded as either progressive or non-
progressive, e.g. I was walking—I walked; a verb phrase may be regarded
as perfective or non-perfective, e.g. I have walked—I walked.

The main meaning of the progressive in English is to view the action or

event as continuing over time or being in progress, rather than a just taking
place. Clearly some verbs are inherently durative in this sense, e.g. sleep,
but even then the progressive can be used and emphasises the progression
or duration of the event, c.f. He was sleeping when the thunderstorm started,
He slept while the thunderstorm raged. The past progressive, as used here,
often refer to an action or event that is in progress when something else
happens. We have mentioned already that the present progressive is the
usual form for referring to events taking place at the present moment in
time, perhaps because such events are viewed as spanning the present and
including immediate past and immediate future, e.g. What are you doing?—
I am writing a letter. One other meaning of the present progressive is to
refer to a ‘temporary’ action or event in contrast to an ‘habitual’ one
represented by the simple present. For example, I water Bill’s garden refers
to an habitual action, while I am watering Bill’s garden (while he’s on
holiday) refers to an action with a limited duration.

The present perfective verb phrase (I have seen) contrasts with the simple
past (I saw) in the following way: the simple past refers to an action or
event that took place at some point in past time, usually, explicitly referred
to by a time adverbial or at least implied in the context; the present perfect,
on the other hand, refers to an action or event which began in the past and
which either lasted up to the present (moment of speaking) or has relevance
for the present. For example, I saw three kingfishers yesterday views the
action as taking place at that moment in past time, while I have seen three
kingfishers implies that the speaker is on the look out for more, or at least
that there is the possibility of seeing more. Compare also: We have lived in
Birmingham for ten years and We lived in Birmingham for ten years, where
the present perfect implies that we still live there, while the simple past
implies that we no longer do. Compare: I lost my umbrella yesterday in
Oxford and I have lost my umbrella, where the present perfect implies that
 30 SYNTAX

the event is still relevant at the time of speaking—note that it would be

impossible to add a point-of-time adverbial to the present perfect example
(‘I have lost my umbrella yesterday’). The past perfect (I had seen)
transfers the meaning of the present perfect into the past, where it refers to
an action or event beginning at a point in the past and continuing to another
more recent, point or event in the past, which has to be specified, e.g. I had
seen six kingfishers by the time dusk fell. One further meaning of the
present perfect is to refer to ‘indefinite’ past time, when a point in time is
not or cannot be specified, e.g. Have you (ever) visited Peking?—Yes I have
been there (but I don’t remember when).

E. Mood

The grammatical category of mood relates to the attitude of the speaker or

of the subject (of the clause) to the action or event referred to by the verb
phrase together with the clause of which it is a part. Meanings associated
with mood are realized in the verb phrase by the modal verbs (can, may,
shall, will, must). On the one hand, modal verbs realize meanings such as
‘ability’ (He can swim), ‘permission’ (You may go now), ‘volition’ (They
will look after your guinea-pig), ‘obligation’/ ‘prohibition’ (The landlord
shall be responsible for the condition of the premises, You must not walk on
the grass). On the other hand, modal verbs realize meanings such as
‘certainty’, ‘possibility’, ‘probability’ and their opposites, e.g. She may
telephone us tonight, They can’t have missed the train, That knock on the
door will be the postman, She might have caught the later bus, They must
have got home by now.

The other use of the term ‘mood’ relates to clauses or sentences, more than
to verb phrases, and refers to the distinction between declarative,
interrogative and imperative clauses, illustrated by :

The secretary has opened the letter—declarative

Has the secretary opened the letters?—interrogative

Open the letters!—imperative.

These, too, relate in a broad sense to the attitude of the speaker, though
perhaps more in regard to his interlocutor than to the action or event itself.
This can be illustrated by the fact that the terms ‘declarative’, ‘interrogative’
and ‘imperative’ are not synonymous with the terms ‘statement’, ‘question’
and ‘command’ respectively. For example it is possible to give a command
using any of the moods indicated, c.f. Open the window, Would you mind
 PHRASES 2: VERB PHRASES 31

opening the window?, I wonder if you would open the window. As can be
seen from these examples, the choice of mood reflects the relationship (or
attitude) of the speaker to the addressee, and they could be regarded as
constituting a scale of politeness or directness for commands.

F. Voice

The term ‘voice’ relates to the distinction in English between active and
passive, a distinction that refers not just to the verb phrase (I saw—I was
seen) but to the whole clause, involving a rearrangement of the elements in
the clause besides a special form of the verb phrase; c.f. The police arrested
the thief—The thief was arrested by the police. In an active clause the
subject is the ‘actor’ or ‘agent’ involved in the action, while in a passive
clause the subject is the ‘patient’ or ‘goal’ or ‘affected participant’ in the
action. The passive is discussed further in Chapter 15.

EXERCISE 5

Analyse the verb, phrases in the following, indicating for each, auxiliary
verb its type.

e.g. he has (perfective) been (passive) found (lexical past part); he must
(modal) be (progressive) joking (lexical pres. part); they might (modal)
have (perfective) said (lexical past part)

1. he may have sat

2. he can’t have been singing
3. you have been drinking
4. they are being stopped
5. he doesn’t know
6. you wouldn’t have been caught
7. he can’t have been being executed
8. I haven’t finished
9. I might be seen
10. it has been being heated.
 32 SYNTAX

Phrases 3:
Adjective Phrases
Adverb Phrases
Prepositional Phrases

A. Adjective phrase

As the name suggests, adjective phrases have as their heads adjectives, e.g.
very enthusiastic about his latest idea. As with noun phrases and verb
phrases the head is the minimal forms. From the example given it is clear
that an adjective may be both pre-modified and post-modified. Pre-
modification in an adjective phrase may only be by an adverb. Usually the
adverb is one of a restricted set of ‘intensifying’ adverbs, e.g. very, quite,
somewhat, rather, extremely, fairly, highly—which express varying degrees
of intensity. Occasionally other adverbs may occur in this position e.g.
beautifully cool, annoyingly simple, disgustingly rich, incredibly slow.
 PHRASES 3: ADJECTIVE / ADVERB / PREPOSITIONAL PHRASES 33

The post-modification in an adjective phrase is sometimes called the

‘complement’ of the adjective. Three kinds of post-modifier or complement
occur in adjective phrases: a prepositional phrase, e.g. very anxious about
Jim’s health; an infinitive clause (clause introduced by an infinitive form of
verb), e.g. very anxious to please everybody; a that-clause (clause
introduced by the conjunction that), e.g. very anxious that no-one should
accuse him of laziness. We have illustrated the three kinds of adjective
complement with one head adjective (anxious), but adjectives vary in the
kinds of complement that are possible after them. Many adjectives do not
allow any kind of complement, e.g. big, blue, astute, sudden, tall. Some
adjectives allow, only one or two kinds of complement; e.g. interesting may
take only an infinitive clause, as in this book is interesting to read; attentive
allows only a prepositional phrase, as in the audience was attentive to the
speaker; safe allows either a prepositional phrase or an infinitive clause (but
not a that-clause) as in this toy is safe for children, this tree is safe to climb
up. For most adjectives post-modification is optional; for a few, however, it
is obligatory, the adjective does not occur without a complement; e.g.
aware is always followed by a prepositional phrase introduced by of, as in
He was aware of a creaking noise.

Adjective phrases have two uses or functions: an attribute function and a

predicative function. The attributive function is when adjectives or
adjective phrases are found in the pre-modification of a noun phrase, as for
example in a very interesting story, a somewhat anxious mother. That is to
say, strictly speaking, a pre-modifying adjective should in fact be regarded
as an adjective phrase; though when, as is mostly the case, adjectives alone
occur (i.e. the minimal form, of an adjective phrase), it is more sensible
from a practical analytical viewpoint to consider them like any other ‘words’
entering the pre-modification of a noun phrase. When an adjective (phrase)
is functioning attributively, it may not, in any case, be followed by a
complement. That is to say, adjective phrases containing complements (i.e.
post-modification) may function only predicatively.

The predicative function of an adjective phrase is its occurrence after a

‘copula’ verb such as be, seem, sound, feel; for example, Naomi is anxious
about Jim’s health, Jim seems concerned that Naomi will worry too much.
An adjective phrase functioning predicatively does not obligatorily contain
a complement: as we have seen, some adjectives do not allow complements,
e.g. criminal in His actions were criminal. However, we noted that some
adjectives (e.g. aware) are obligatorily followed by a complement. This fact
clearly implies that some adjectives must be restricted to functioning in
predicative position (since attributive adjective phrases may not contain
complements).
 34 SYNTAX

Indeed, an adjective does not have to be obligatorily post-modified to be

restricted to predicative position. The vast majority of adjectives may
function either attributively or predicatively, e.g. the charming girl, the girl
is charming. But there is a small set restricted to predicative position, and
likewise a small set restricted to attributive position. For example, main
occurs only attributively, as in the main reason; it is not possible to say ‘the
reason is main’. Likewise mere is found only in attributive position. e.g. a
mere youth, but not ‘The youth is mere’. Adjectives restricted to predicative
position include, for example, faint as in he feels faint (but not ‘a faint
man’), asleep as in the dog is asleep (but not ‘the asleep dog’), and alone as
in the girl is alone (but not ‘the alone girl’). Some native speakers would
include ‘ill’ among this group; i.e. they would accept the cow is ill but not
‘the ill cow’; other native speakers would accept the latter. Among
adjectives restricted to predicative position and obligatorily followed by a
complement are also: averse as in I am not averse to a cup of tea;
tantamount as in Her remarks were tantamount to slander; loath as in They
are loath to leave this district.

B. Adverb phrase

As the name implies, adverb phrases have as their heads adverbs. An

adverb is the minimal form of an adverb phrase; indeed, many adverb
phrases occur in the minimal form. An adverb may, however, be pre-
modified; though post- modification is not found at all in adverb phrases.
The only kind of pre-modifier occurring in adverb phrases is another adverb,
usually of the same restricted set of ‘intensifying’ adverbs as is found in the
pre-modification of adjective phrases, e.g. very quickly, quite wonderfully,
somewhat fleetingly, extremely faithfully. However, as with adjectives,
other adverbs may also function as pre-modifiers in adverb phrases, e.g.
amazingly well, understandably badly, horribly fast, incredibly gracefully.
This kind of modifying adverb appears to be either directly (amazingly) or
indirectly (horribly) an expression of personal evaluation.

Adverb phrases have three uses or functions. Their main function is in the
adjunct position in clause structure (see Chapter 13), to provide
circumstantial information about the action, process or event talked about in
the clause in which they occur. Circumstantial information includes
information about the place, time, manner, etc. of the action, process or
event. The majority of adverb phrases have adjunct function, e.g. very soon
(time), right here (place), extremely carefully (manner), rather noisily
(manner).
 PHRASES 3: ADJECTIVE / ADVERB / PREPOSITIONAL PHRASES 35

The other two functions of adverb phrases are the conjunct function and
the disjunct function. The sets of adverbs or adverb phrases that may
perform these functions are limited in number, and this adverbs involved
are not, as a rule, modified. Adverb phrases with the conjunct function
serve to link or ‘conjoin’ one clause or sentence to another. In the following
example, therefore and besides are functioning as conjuncts: Harry is
inefficient. It is not, therefore, worth considering him for the post. Besides,
George is the ideal man. Other conjuncts include: however, yet, moreover,
thereupon, indeed (see further Chapter 16). They typically come first in a
sentence, or at least early on, and in writing are bounded by commas: That,
however, is another question; However, that is another question.

Adverb phrases with a disjunct function also tend to occur initially in a

sentence. The disjunct function refers to the expression of the speaker’s
stance or attitude to what he is saying; a disjunct adverb (phrase) reflects
explicitly the way in which a speaker intends what he is about to say to be
interpreted. Disjunct adverb phrases (unlike adjuncts) are not really
constituents of the clauses that they introduce; e.g. Frankly, I can’t see
George doing the job either. Here, frankly is the disjunct adverb, expressing
the speaker’s intention s to how he wishes his statement to be understood; it
could be considered a kind of abbreviation for something like I am telling
you frankly, where frankly is now an adjunct of manner. Disjuncts involve
the speaker reflecting on his own use of language. Adverb phrases
functioning as disjuncts may occasionally contain a pre-modifier in the
form of an ‘intensifying’ adverb, e.g. Quite honestly, I don’t see a solution
to the problem. Other adverbs having a disjunct function include: seriously,
candidly, bluntly, generally, personally.

C. Prepositional phrase

Prepositional phrases are unlike any of the other types of phrase: they do
not have a head, and thus also do not have a minimal form consisting of just
one word. A prepositional phrase is composed of a preposition and a noun
phrase, e.g. in the garden, after the party. Both elements are obligatory, and
neither may substitute for the phrase as a whole, in the way that a head
noun may substitute for a noun phrase, for example. Phrases like noun
phrases are said to be endocentric, while prepositional phrase is exocentric.
An endocentric construction may be substituted for as a whole by one of its
constituent units; e.g. a noun may stand for a whole noun phrase, c.f. big
African lions roaming the jungle—lions. In an exocentric construction no
such substitution is possible, e.g. in a prepositional phrase both the
preposition and the noun phrase must occur; one of them alone cannot stand
 36 SYNTAX

for the whole phrase. Here are some further examples of prepositional
phrases: on the boat, behind the bus, on Friday night, into the final straight,
at the stroke of ten.

Prepositions are of various kinds; they have a relational role. The kinds of
relation expressed most often are those of space and time, e.g. beneath the
spreading chestnut tree, throughout the long and stormy voyage. Space may
be subdivided into location and direction, e.g. in the kitchen (location),
towards the town (direction). Time may be subdivided into point of time
and extent of time, e.g. before the wedding (point), for several days (extent).
A number of other relations are also expressed by prepositions; for example,
topic as in the chilling story about ghost; purpose, as in a key for the
opening of the safe; similarity, as in a boy like his father; instrument as in
with an axe; accompaniment, as in with a bowler hat.

In all the cases mentioned in the previous paragraph, the preposition has a
specific meaning, namely the meaning of the relation that, it represents and
refers to. Sometimes prepositions are used without specific meaning of this
kind, when they are attached to particular verbs, adjectives or nouns. For
example, the verb blame is followed either by the preposition on (They
blamed the mess on Jim) or by the preposition for (They blamed Jim for the
mess); in either case the preposition is predictable, and so lacking in
specific meaning. Similarly, the adjective interested is followed by in (I am
interested in your offer), and proud by of (She is proud of her children).
The noun anxiety is followed by about (There is great anxiety about his
future), and sympathy by for (We have a lot of sympathy for you). In all
these cases the preposition has a purely syntactic relational function in
relating a verb, adjective or noun to a following object or complement. It is
more or less meaningless, since it cannot be replaced by any other
preposition and thus enter into a meaningful contrast. Indeed, in the case of
verbs like blame on, blame for, wait for, look after, the preposition is often
considered to be part of the verb, and linguists speak of ‘prepositional verbs’
(see Chapter 11).

Given these two functions of prepositions, there are, then, two kinds of
prepositional phrase. There are those prepositional phrases that represent
circumstantial information about an action, process or event, indicating time,
place, manner, reason, etc. and which have a similar semantic and syntactic
function to adverbs and adverb phrases (filling adjunct position in clause
structure). And there are those prepositional phrases which follow particular
verbs and adjectives, and also occasionally nouns, as objects or
complements. In the case of such nouns we are thinking of items like
anxiety about, desire for, submission to, which require a specific
preposition; rather than the more general post-modification of nouns by
 PHRASES 3: ADJECTIVE / ADVERB / PREPOSITIONAL PHRASES 37

prepositional phrases (e.g. the man behind the wall, the morning after the
wedding), where the prepositional phrase is functioning more like an
adjunct than a complement. However, the post-modifying prepositional
phrases here are providing circumstantial information, usually either of time
or of place, about a ‘thing’ rather than about an action, process or event.
Nouns requiring specific prepositions end complements are usually derived
from verbs or adjectives, e.g. anxiety from anxious, desire from the verb
desire, submission from submit.

EXERCISE 6

Identify the phrases in the following, and give an analysis in terms of the
classes or subclasses of words that comprise them.

e.g. Understandably (adv P disjunct) Sam (NP) has declined (VP) the offer
(NP); Sam (head N) has (aux perf) declined (lex V) the (ident) offer (head
N). His arrival (NP) looks (VP) extremely unlikely (adj P) now (adv P
adjunct); his (ident) arrival (head N), looks (lex V), extremely (intens adv)
unlikely (head adj), now (head adv).
He (NP) could have told (VP) us (NP) this very good news (NP) yesterday
(adv P adjunct); he (head pron), could (modal) have (aux perf) told (lex V),
us (head pron), this (ident) very good (adj P) news (head N), yesterday
(head adv); very (intens adv) good (head adj).

1. a very earnest look

2. he sounds very interested in our proposal
3. unfortunately, he is very busy now
4. a quite ridiculously worded statement
5. is he certain of our support
6. I am quite sure that he is certain to win
7. a rather baffling description
8. so, that makes it awkward to find
9. astonishingly, he can walk very fast
10. he was rather concerned that no-one should know immediately.
 38 SYNTAX

Clauses 1:
Structure and Types

A. The structure of clauses

Syntactic units are normally composed of units directly below them in the
hierarchy, and they function in units directly above them. So a phrase is
composed of words and functions in a clause; the word the is a definite
article, which is a subclass of the word class ‘identifier’ and functions as a
pre-modifier in a noun phrase. Clauses, then, are composed of phrases. And
just as the description of phrases was in terms of the words and their
function in various types of phrase, so the description of clauses is in terms
of the kinds or categories of phrase and their function in different types of
clause. The categories of phrase are those described in the previous three
chapters, namely noun phrase, verb phrase, adjective phrase, adverb phrase,
and prepositional phrase.
 CLAUSES 1: STRUCTURES AND TYPES 39

B. Function of phrases

There are five possible functions that phrases may fulfil in English clause
structure: they are subject, verb, object, complement, and adjunct
(abbreviated S, V, O, C, A). We shall now examine what kinds of function
occur and which categories of phrase operate in each function. Other units
besides phrases may sometimes operate in some of these functions; to a
consideration of those we shall return later.

Subject

The subject function is normally filled by a noun phrase. The noun or

pronoun that is head of the subject noun phrase is said to ‘agree’ with the
verb in number. In practice, apart from the verb be, this applies only to the
third person singular of the simple present tense. Compare the following
The mice run up the clock, The mouse runs up the clock; where -s is added
in the case of the third person singular present tense form of the verb. In the
case of the verb be, there are three forms in the present tense (I am, he/she/it
is, you/we/they are) and two in the past tense (I/he/she/it was, you/we/they
were). The subject normally precedes the verb in statement clauses in
English; English is basically a subject-verb-object (SVO) language.

Verb

The verb function is always filled by a verb phrase; no other category of

phrase ever operates in this function. It is virtually defining characteristic of
a clause that is it contains a verb, either of a finite or a non-finite kind.
Clauses without verbs do occasionally occur, but they may usually be
regarded a derivations in some way from fuller clauses with verbs. For
example, in the sentence Dinner over, they went to bed, dinner over could
be considered to be a verbless clause; but it is presumably derived from
When dinner was over… or from Dinner being over..., which do contain
verbs. The most usual type of clause contains at least a subject and a verb
(see clause types below). The common exceptions to this are imperative
clauses e.g. Get out!, which are sometimes considered to have a you subject
‘understood’, and non-finite clauses e.g. walking across the road…, where
the subject is ‘recoverable’ from the clause to which it is attached.
 40 SYNTAX

Object

The object function may be filled either by a noun phrase or by a

prepositional phrase, as for example in: Bill is expecting a big surprise, Bill
is waiting for a big surprise. In fact this second example may be analyzed
in two ways; as we have implied, it may be regarded as being composed of
a subject: noun phrase, verb: verb phrase, and object: prepositional phrase.
Alternatively, the preposition may be regarded as belonging to the verb, i.e.
the verb is wait for, a prepositional verb, and the object is then a noun
phrase. However, it may sometimes be useful in analysis to assign the
preposition in such cases to the object rather than the verb, especially if the
preposition does not occur adjacent to the verb, as for example in Mary
blamed the poor result on adverse weather conditions.

Some clauses have two objects, and a distinction is sometimes drawn

between direct and indirect objects. The indirect object normally refers to a
person, more particularly the person who is recipient or who benefits from
the action. For example, in Jim gave his wife a yellow flower, his wife is
indirect object and recipient, and the clause may be paraphrased Jim gave a
yellow flower to his wife. In the clause Agatha knitted her husband a yellow
pullover, her husband is indirect object and beneficiary, and the clause ma
be paraphrased Agatha knitted a yellow pullover for her husband.
Sometimes the distinction between direct and indirect object is not easily
drawn. For example, in the clauses Jim sprayed blue paint on the kitchen
wall and Jim sprayed the kitchen wall with blue paint, it is difficult to
determine which of the kitchen wall and with blue pain could be called
indirect object. It is more satisfactory to talk in such cases of object 1 and
object 2.

Complement

The complement function may be filled either by a noun phrase or by an

adjective phrase e.g. Jim has become a qualified engineer, Jim seems quite
pleasant, where a qualified engineer and quite pleasant are complements.
What distinguishes a complement from an object? A complement has the
‘same reference’ as the subject, as in the examples given, or as the object
when it follows this element, as in I find Jim quite pleasant. That is to say,
the subject and complement, or object and complement, refer to the same
person or thing, although without being identical or absolutely synonymous
lexical items. This is not the case with subject and object, which are
normally quite distinct in reference, unless the object is ‘reflexive’, as in
 CLAUSES 1: STRUCTURES AND TYPES 41

Jim has cut himself, or the object refers to a part of the subject, as in Jim
has cut his finger.

As the previous paragraph implies, a complement may be either a subject

complement (with same reference as the subject) or an object complement
(with same reference as the object). Furthermore, a complement may refer
either to a state, as in Harry seems ill, I find Fred quite unpleasant, or to a
result, as in Harry has become ill, That made Fred quite unpleasant. There
is a limited subclass of verbs that may be associated with complements;
within that subclass one group takes a state complement, while another
takes a result complement.

Adjunct

Adjuncts, which are normally optional elements in clause structure and may
be freely added to any clause, give circumstantial information about the
action or event that the clause refers to e.g. information about time (when or
how long), about place (position or direction), about manner, cause and so
on.

The adjunct function is filled by an adverb phrase, a prepositional phrase,

or a noun phrase. For example, in Tony walked there very quickly, there and
very quickly, are adverb phrases functioning as adjunct; in Sue walked to the
farm after lunch, to the farm and after lunch are prepositional phrases
functioning as adjunct; and in Liz walked ten miles that afternoon, ten miles
and that afternoon are noun phrases functioning as adjunct.

Obligatory and optional elements

When a subject, verb, object or complement occur in a clause, their

presence is usually necessary to render the clause grammatical or sensible;
for example, to leave the complement out of Harry seems ill would render it
ungrammatical or senseless—‘Harry seems’. Adjuncts, on the other hand,
are usually optional elements: to leave the adjunct out of Harry seemed ill
yesterday does not render the clause ungrammatical—Harry seemed ill.
Subject, verb and complement are mostly obligatory; they must be present
or the clause will be ungrammatical. Objects may sometimes be omitted,
although some object is usually ‘understood’ when that is the case: e.g. in
the clause Jim is writing, it is understood that Jim is writing something (e.g.
a letter) or somewhere (e.g. in his notebook). Adjuncts may sometimes be
obligatory; for example, in the clause The waiter put the soup on the table,
the adjunct on the table cannot be omitted without rendering the clause
ungrammatical—‘The waiter put the soup’.
 42 SYNTAX

EXERCISE 7

Analyse the following clauses into phrases, indicating the function and
category of each phrase.

e.g. The bowler (S:NP) threw (V:VP) the ball (O:NP) at the stumps (A:prep
P).
The Jury (S:NP) found (V:VP) the prisoner (O:NP) guilty (C: adj P).
The performance (S:NP) lasted (V:VP) three hours (A:NP) unfortunately
(A:adv P)

1. The farmer was eating his lunch in the corn field.

2. The committee considers your proposals rather unworkable.
3. The transport manager could not decide on a new bus.
4. Jim passed the salt down the table.
5. The delinquent received a reprimand from the magistrate.
6. The milk has gone sour.
7. Gordon sent his apologies to the meeting.

C. Types of clause

On the basis of the functions of phrases occurring in clause structure, a

number of basic clause types may be recognized. In English there are seven
such basic clause types, which are specified only by the obligatory elements.
They are:

1. Subject verb (SV) The dog laughed

2. Subject verb adjunct (SVA) A policeman lives in that house
3. Subject verb complement (SVC) That sounds a good idea
4. Subject verb object (SVO) Everyone kicked the bucket
5. Subject verb object adjunct The government sent the envoy
(SVOA) to Africa
6. Subject verb object object (SVOO) They passed Aunty Ann the salt
7. Subject verb object complement We imagined Uncle Bill much
(SVOC) fatter

Type 1 is an intransitive clause type. The verb refers to an action carried

out by the subject that does not affect anybody or anything else. Also
included in this group are the so-called ‘impersonal’ verbs e.g. It’s raining,
where the subject refers to a total environment rather than to some part of it.

Type 2 clauses may also be regarded as intransitive, although some

linguists consider them to be more similar to Type 3. The verbs involved
 CLAUSES 1: STRUCTURES AND TYPES 43

here take an obligatory adjunct. These are mainly adjuncts of place, either
of position as in the example above, or of direction, as in We went to the
theatre. But a few verbs take obligatory adjuncts of time or of manner e.g.
The performance lasted four hours, We live well, where four hours is an
adjunct noun phrase of time (how long) and well is an adjunct adverb
phrase of manner.

Type 3 is the intensive clause type. The complement and subject are said to
be in an intensive relation: subject and complement are not distinct entities
but refer to the same ‘thing’. An intensive relation also occurs when two
noun phrases are in apposition e.g. Mr Plod, the Policeman; That idiot, the
fishmonger.

Type 4 is a transitive clause type. For greater accuracy and to distinguish

this clause type from Type 6, it is also called ‘mono-transitive’. Transitive
implies having an object, and mono-transitive having only one object. This
is probably the commonest clause type, both in terms of the number of
verbs that enter it and in terms of frequency of occurrence in spoken and
written language.

Type 5 is also a transitive clause type, but here with an obligatory adjunct
in addition to an object. As in the case of Type 2, the majority of the
adjuncts are of place, although other kinds of adjunct do occur. For example,
in They treated the prisoner badly, badly is an obligatory adjunct of manner;
and in This car cost me £600, £600 is an adjunct of extent (how much).

Type 6 is the di-transitive clause type, i.e. having two objects. The two
objects are sometimes distinguishable in terms of a direct object and an
indirect object. The indirect object comes before the direct object and
usually refers, to an animate ‘thing’. It may refer either to the recipient
involved in the action, when the clause may be paraphrased by a subject—
verb—direct object—to—indirect object structure, as for example the
clause above: They passed the salt to Aunty Ann; or to the beneficiary of the
action, when the clause is paraphrasable by a subject—verb—direct
object—for—indirect object structure e.g. They saved me a seat—They
saved a seat for me.

Type 7 is the complex-transitive clause type. There is in effect only one

element following the verb, but it is a complex of an object and a
complement. An intensive relation exists between the object and the
complement, of the same kind as exists between the subject and the
complement in Type 3.
 44 SYNTAX

In terms of the phrase functions making up clause structure, there are seven
types of clause, but we have given only five labels to them, since Types 1
and 2 fall together under the ‘intransitive’ label, and Types 4 and 5 fall
together under the ‘transitive’ label. There is no separate label to refer to
clause ‘types with obligatory adjuncts.

The constant elements in all the clause types are the subject and the verb. It
is what comes after the verb that varies. What follows the verb, is called the
complementation of the verb; that is, the additional elements (phrases)
which the verb requires for the clause in which it stands to be grammatical
or sensible. Not every verb, therefore, may enter every clause type. Many
verbs are restricted to just one clause type; for example, seem and become
may enter only Type 3, elect only Type 7, sit only Type 2. Other verbs may
enter more than one clause type, according to sense and context; for
example, find may enter Types 4 and 7, put Types 5 and 7, open Types I
and 4. Each verb may therefore be specified for the clause types it may
enter, and in more detail still for the categories of phrase that may be
associated with it in each clause type. This is part of the lexical description
of a verb, and will be discussed further in Chapter 20.

EXERCISE 8

Analyse the following clauses in terms of their phrases, giving the function
and category of each phrase. Indicate which clause type each belongs to,
remembering that adjuncts may often be optional elements.

e.g. All of them (S:NP) called (V:VP) Harry (O:NP) a fine fellow (C:NP).
Type 7.
They (S:NP) crammed (V:VP) the clothes (O:NP) into the case (A: prep P).
Type 5.
We (S:NP) played (V:VP) snooker (O:NP) after dinner (A: prep P). Type 4.

1. The old fellow forgot about Jim yesterday.

2. I wouldn’t make rice in that saucepan.
3. Your Madras curry smells appetizing.
4. You may not deposit your boots on top of mine.
5. They rolled the barrel into the courtyard.
6. You must not walk on the grass.
7. They consider poor old Andrei insane.
8. Barry sent Mary a bunch of carnations.
9. Your luggage weighs seventy kilos.
10. The children played in the garden all yesterday afternoon.
 45 CLAUSES 2: DEPENDENT CLAUSES

Clauses 2:
Dependent Clauses

A. Dependent clauses

In the previous chapter we considered the structure of clauses, i.e. simple

sentences, In terms of the phrases that composed them. We shall now look
at the other functions of clauses, that is. at clauses used other than as
independent entities. We shall look, then, at dependent or subordinate
clauses. We can distinguish three broad categories of dependent clause:
nominal clauses, relative clauses, and adverbial clauses

B. Nominal clauses

Nominal clauses, as the name suggests, function in the same places as noun
phrases. We saw in the previous chapter that noun phrases function as
subject of a clause, object of a clause, or complement of a clause.
Additionally a noun phrase may function as an adjunct, but nominal clauses
do not function in this position. There are four types of nominal clause, two
finite and two non-finite. The two finite types are that clauses and wh-
 46 SYNTAX

clauses, and the non-finite types are infinitive clauses and participle
clauses: the latter usually involving a present participle rather than a past
participle.

That clauses are so called because they are introduced by the conjunction
that. They may function as either subject, object or complement, as in the
following examples:

That Jim should take a bath amazed Penny (that clause as subject);
Jim believes that baths are harmful to the personality (that clause as object);
The possibility is that Jim is scared of water (that clause as complement).

When a that clause functions as subject, it is normally the case that a

dummy it functions in subject position, and the that clause is extraposed
e.g. in It amazed Penny that Jim should take a bath. Here the subject is the
that clause, but it has been put after the rest of the clause (extraposed) and
its position in the clause has been filled by it, whose only function is a
place-holding one. English tends to consign long and weighty elements to
the end of a clause, according to the principle of ‘end-weight’ (see further
Chapter 15.)

Wh-clauses are those introduced by who, what, when, where, how, why,
whether, if. They may be of two kinds, either an indirect question or a
nominal relative clause. Indirect questions are relatable to direct questions
e.g. I wonder if Bill has posted the letter may be related to Has Bill posted
the letter?, He told me what happened is related to What happened?. A
nominal relative clause may be paraphrased by that which... or the place
where…, or by some similar phrase turning the wh- clause
a relative clause (see below) e.g. What happened took Jim by surprise may
have the paraphrase That which happened…, Nobody knows where he went
paraphrased by ... the place to which he went.

Wh- clauses may function as subject, object or complement, as the follow

examples illustrate:

Where Penny had gone did not interest Jeff (wh-clause as subject), perhaps
more commonly with extraposition—It did not interest Jeff where Penny
had gone; They don’t know whether the bus has already gone (wh-clause as
object); The question is what we do now (wh-clause as complement).

In infinitive clauses the infinitive form of the verb may be of two kinds:
either a to-infinitive or a ‘bare’ infinitive (i.e. infinitive without to), e.g. I
want you to go to the shops for me has a to-infinitive, while I saw him run
down the road has a ‘bare’ infinitive (to go and run respectively).
 47 CLAUSES 2: DEPENDENT CLAUSES

Infinitive clauses may function as both subject and complement, e.g. To

blackcurrant tart is to experience the ultimate culinary delight, which
illustrates both. But most commonly infinitive clauses function as object or
as part of the object. Compare the following clauses:

I asked him to leave the room/I want him to leave the room. In the first of
these clauses, the infinitive clause is functioning as direct object, while him
functions indirect object. It is possible to question both of these elements,
e.g. What did I ask him?, Who did I ask to leave the room?. The verb want,
however, which occurs in second clause, does not normally take two objects,
and the questions applied to ask do not both fit: Who do I want to leave the
room is all right, but ‘What do I want him’ is not possible, although What
do I want is. This implies that this second clause is to be analyzed as
subject—verb—object (rather than SVOO), and the object is to be regarded
as a complex element made up of a noun phrase and an infinitive clause.

Participle clauses, in this case mainly with present participle, may function
as both subject and complement; e.g. Seeing is believing which illustrates
both functions; Watching a wrestling match makes me doubt the idea of
civilization, where subject is a participle clause. But, as in the case of the
infinitive clauses, the most frequent function of a participle clause is as
object or part of an object. In Elephants like eating roasted peanuts the
participle clause is functioning as object. In The keeper found the elephant
munching peanuts the participle clause is functioning a part of the object,
like the infinitive clause in I want him to leave the room. Indeed, participle
clauses never function like infinitive clauses in I asked him to leave the
room, i.e. as a second object, unless they are introduced by a preposition.
For example, with They accused the keeper of giving the elephant peanuts it
is possible question both objects: Who did they accuse of giving the
elephant peanuts?, What did they accuse the keeper of?.

EXERCISE 9

Analyse the following clauses in terms of the phrases and dependent clauses
that compose them, indicating for each constituent its function and its
category:

e.g. Taking that bend at 60 mph (S: participle cl) explains (V:VP) how he
left the road (O: wh-cl)
It (dummy) disturbs (V:VP) me (O:NP) to see so many people wasting their
time (S: inf cl)
 48 SYNTAX

1. That people throw away money on gambling never ceases to amaze

me.
2. I cannot imagine how the mistake could have happened.
3. He doesn’t seem to suffer much.
4. You cannot order me to jump into the river.
5. I think that you will catch him stealing the apples.
6. They reported to the police what the prisoner had said.
7. It disappointed the candidate that few people came to hear him.
8. We do not know who will be his successor.

C. Relative clauses

Relative clauses function as post-modifier in noun phrases e.g. the old

elephant which we saw yesterday. They are linked to the head of the noun
phrase by means of a relative pronoun.

The form of the relative pronoun is determined by two factors. Firstly, it is

determined by whether the head noun (sometimes called the antecedent of
the relative pronoun) is personal or non-personal. This factor basically
determines the choice between who and which: who is used for antecedents
that refer to persons, and which for antecedents referring to other than
persons. Secondly, the form of the relative pronoun is determined by the
function syntactically of the relative pronoun within the relative clause: for
example, in the man whom I visited yesterday, whom has the function object
in the relative clause; in the elephant whose ear I tickled, whose has the
function genitive; in the building to which I was referring, to which has the
function prepositional object.

Besides the relative pronouns already mentioned there is a further one, that,
which may be used with both personal and non-personal antecedents e.g.
the singer that I like most, the song that I like most. It is the only relative
pronoun that may be used after all, anything, everything, e.g. everything
that I’ve said, and after superlative forms of adjectives e.g. the last example
that I gave.

Also used as relative pronouns are the words when, where, why, etc. but
obviously only after the appropriate head nouns e.g. the time when food was
cheap, the house where I was born, the reason why he kept quiet. Such
noun phrases are often reduced by omitting the head noun, in which case
they become nominal relative clauses e.g. when food was cheap, where I
was born, why he kept quiet.
 49 CLAUSES 2: DEPENDENT CLAUSES

D. Adverbial clauses

Adverbial clauses, like adverb phrases and prepositional phrases

functioning as adjunct, give circumstantial information about an action or
event, that is information about time, place, manner, etc. e.g. He always
sings when he is in the bath, He always goes where he is not allowed to.

Adverbial clauses are introduced by conjunctions which ‘join’ the adverbial

clause to the main clause. The following are some further examples:

Conditional clauses, introduced by if or unless, e.g. If It rains today, we

won’t play football, Unless you come early, you won’t get a seat;

Comparison clauses, introduced by than or as…as, e.g. Jane writes more

neatly than Jim does, Jane sews as neatly as Jim writes;

Reason clauses, introduced by because or since, e.g. We can’t go on

holiday because we haven’t any money, Since we have no money, we can’t
go on holiday;

Contrast clauses, introduced by though or although, e.g. Although Albert

doesn’t have any money he is still going on holiday;

Purpose clauses, introduced by so that, e.g. They’ve dug an air-raid shelter

so that they will be safe in the next war;

Result clauses, introduced by so…that, e.g. The pictures were so dusty that
no-one could see what they were.

In the same way that nominal clauses can be regarded as functioning as

subject and object in clause structure, so too adverbial clauses may
sometimes be considered as functioning as adjunct in clause structure. If
this were always the case, the clause. would be the highest or largest unit in
clause structure, since if two clauses occurred together one would be
regarded as functioning as an element within the other. But it is not at all
clear that adverbial clauses may always be considered to be functioning as
adjunct within another clause. For example, with conditional clauses it is
not a case of adding circumstantial information about an action or event, but
rather of setting two actions or events in relationship to each other: one is
conditional on the other, and each event is represented by a separate clause.
 50 SYNTAX

E. Sentences

So we recognize a yet higher level than that of clause, that of sentence.

Sentences, then, have a structure described in terms of clauses. And clauses
may be related in two ways within sentences. They may be co-ordinated by
means of the coordinating conjunctions and, but and or, or by means of a
conjunct adverb (e.g. yet, so), and here the relationship is a simple one of
conjoining e.g. Jim likes wallflowers, but Penny likes magnolias. On the
other hand, within a sentence one clause may be subordinated to another,
giving the terms main and subordinate clause, or independent clause and
dependent clause. Subordination is by means of a subordinating
conjunction such as since, if, so that, because, etc. And here it is not simply
a case of conjoining but also of indicating a particular relationship, for
example of condition, or contrast, or purpose.

Finally, a word must be said about the syntactic status of conjunctions.

Conjunctions are words, but unlike other words they do not enter into the
structure of phrases. Their function is to link clauses and so they function
directly at the sentence level. In analysis, therefore, they are dealt with as
separate items at the level of sentence (see the following two exercises).

EXERCISE 10

Analyse the following sentences in terms of clauses and phrases.

Figure 2: Examples of syntactic analysis

e.g. If you like the book that he is talking about you should buy one.

Conj Cl Cl

S:NP V:VP O:NP S:NP V:VP O:NP

Id N rel cl

O:NP S:NP V:VP

If you like the book that he is talking about you should buy one
 51 CLAUSES 2: DEPENDENT CLAUSES

Barry likes to play football, but he does not often have the opportunity.

Cl Conj Cl

S:NP V:VP O:inf cl S:NP V:VP A:AdvP O:NP

V:VP O:NP

Barry likes to play football, but he does not have often the opportunity

1. Although. Jim finds the work difficult, he continues to’ do his best.
2. The politician that J admire most is the one who sticks to his
principles.
3. Since elephants like peanuts. I am surprised that they haven’t learned
to crack nuts.
4. I do sometimes wonder if all this education doesn’t drive people crazy.
5. If you do not believe me, you should look at the incidence of suicides
among students.
6. The book about which I was speaking costs more than I would want to pay.
7. While he was deciding what he should do next, the tiger reappeared
on the spot where he had been standing.
8. Penny considers that such pastimes are puerile, but Jeff enjoys
engaging in them.

F. Summary

Now, as a summary of what we have been discussing since Chapter 8 there

follows a review of the syntactic structure of English sentences.

In analysing the structure of sentences we recognize a hierarchy of syntactic

levels: sentence—clause—phrase—word. The normal relation between the
levels is that units of one level function in the level next above and are
composed of units from the level immediately below; e.g. phrases function
in clauses and are composed of words. So to describe the structure of a unit
at any level, we have to specify what type or categories of unit from the
level below are involved and what function they are performing.

A sentence is composed of one or more clauses. A sentence composed of

one clause is called a simple sentence, and its structure is the same as that
of a clause. A sentence composed of more than one clause is called a
complex sentence. In a complex sentence, either two clauses may be co-
 52 SYNTAX

ordinated, or one may be subordinated to the other. In the first case two
independent clauses are involved, in the second one independent and one
dependent; e.g. Jim came through the door and Bill went out of the window
(co-ordinated), Because Jim came through the door, Bill went out of the
window (first clause subordinated to the second).

Dependent clauses sometimes function directly in sentences, as described

above (conditional clauses, comparative clauses, concessive clauses, etc.),
when they are introduced by subordinating conjunctions. Sometimes,
however, they function directly in clause structure or in phrase structure e.g.
that clauses, wh-clauses, infinitive clauses, relative clauses.

Clauses are composed of phrases. Phrases may function in five possible

ways in clause structure: as subject, verb, object, complement, adjunct
(SVOCA). As S may function: noun phrase, that clause, wh-clause, present
participle (-ing) clause, infinitive clause. As V may function: verb phrase
only. As O may function: noun phrase, prepositional phrase, that clause,
wh-clause, -ing clause, infinitive clause. As C may function: noun phrase,
adjective phrase, that clause, wh-clause. As A my function: adverb phrase,
prepositional phrase, noun phrase, adverbial clause. O may sometimes be
indirect object (Oi) or direct object (Od); as Oi may occur only: noun
phrase, prepositional phrase with either to or for. O may sometimes be
complex, i.e. noun phrase + -ing clause or infinitive clause.

Clauses may be divided into seven basic types, according to the obligatory
elements that may occur with specified verbs: (1) intransitive SV, (2)
intransitive SVA, (3) intensive SVC, (4) mono-transitive SVO, (5) mono-
transitive SVOA, (6) di- transitive SVOO, (7) complex-transitive SVOC.

Phrases are composed of words. There are five kinds or categories of phrase:
noun phrase (NP), verb phrase (VP), prepositional phrase (prep P),
adjective phrase (adj P), adverb phrase (adv P)—each with a different
structure. NP is composed of: pre-modification—head—post-modification.
As pre-modification may function: pre-determiner—identifier or NP
genitive—quantifier/numeral—adjective—noun modifier. More than one
adjective or quantifier may occur, in which case there is a specific order
within these groups of words. As post-modification may function:
prepositional phrase, participle clause (-ing or -ed clause), relative clause,
infinitive clause. As head may function: noun, pronoun, demonstrative,
possessive. With all except noun there are restrictions on the modification
that may occur.

VP is composed of: modifiers—head. As head may function a lexical verb

only. As modifiers may function: auxiliary verbs, negative particle. Up to
 53 CLAUSES 2: DEPENDENT CLAUSES

four auxiliary verbs may occur; the first one is called the operator. The
negative, particle (not) comes after the operator. Auxiliaries occur in the
order: modal—have (perfective)—be (progressive)—be (passive). The
operator inverts with the subject in polar questions, takes the negative
particle immediately following, and is repeated in tag questions. If no other
auxiliary is present, then for these operations do is the obligatory auxiliary.

Prep P is composed of a preposition and a noun phrase (the structure of

which is described above). Adj P is composed of modifier and head. As
head may function an adjective; as modifier may function an intensifying
adverb. The adjective may be followed by a complement (post-modifier)
which may be: Prep P, infinitive clause, that clause. Adv P is composed of a
modifier and a head. As head may function an adverb, as modifier an
intensifying adverb.

Words are divided into classes on the basis of common form, common
function and common reference. It is possible to recognize nine word
classes in English: noun, verb, adjective, adverb, numerals, determiner,
pronoun, preposition, conjunction. Nouns refer to ‘things’. They are
subdivided into proper (names of unique things) and common nouns, into
mass (or uncountable) and countable nouns, and into concrete and abstract
nouns.

Verbs refer to actions and events. They are subdivided into auxiliary and
lexical verbs. Auxiliary verbs are subdivided into primary auxiliaries (be,
have, do) and modal auxiliaries (can, may, will, must, etc.). Lexical verbs
may be subdivided according to meaning or according to syntactic
operation, i.e. which clause types they may enter.

Adjectives refer to ‘qualities’. They are subdivided into attributive and

predicative adjectives (most may be both), and into inherent and non-
inherent adjectives.

Adverbs refer to circumstantial information (place, time, manner, etc.).

They may be subdivided into intensifying and non-intensifying adverbs; the
two groups do not overlap, and the group of intensifiers is a fairly small one.

Numerals are used for counting. They are subdivided into ordinals (first)
and cardinals (one).

Determiners indicate the contextual status of a noun. They are subdivided

into identifiers and quantifiers. Identifiers are further subdivided into:
articles (definite and indefinite), demonstratives, possessives. Quantifiers
 54 SYNTAX

refer to expressions of indefinite quantity. Determiners also includes the

small group of pre-determiners (all, both, half, etc.).

Pronouns replace nouns. They are subdivided into: personal pronouns,

possessive pronouns, demonstrative pronouns, relative pronouns,
interrogative pronouns.

Prepositions are relational words. Sometimes they mean some specific

relation, such as ‘place at which’, ‘direction’, ‘time when’, ‘cause’. Other
times they are simply relational syntactically especially after verbs,
adjectives and nouns.

Conjunctions are also relational words, but they relate clauses rather than
phrases. They usually mean something specific, e.g. ‘time’, ‘condition’,
‘concession’, ‘reason’.

EXERCISE 11

Make a complete syntactic analysis, from sentence to word, of the

following sentences:

Figure 3: Examples of complete syntactic analysis

e.g. After visiting Milan they decided that they must see Naples.

Cl

A:Adv cl S:NP V:VP O:that cl

Conj V:VP O:NP pron lexV conj S:NP V:VP O:NP

lexV N pron mod lexV N

After visiting Milan they decided that they must see Naples
 55 CLAUSES 2: DEPENDENT CLAUSES

Although the patient seems much improved she will have to rest quietly for
a few more days.

Conj Cl Cl

S:NP V:VP C:adjP S:NP V:VP O:inf cl

ident N lexV adv adj pron mod lexV V:VP A:advP A:prepP

prep NP

qu qu N

Although the patient seems much improved she will have to rest quietly for a few more days.

During the years that followed these three men found their destines
inextricably linked.

Cl

A:prepP S:NP V:VP O:NP C:adjP

prep NP id num N lexV id N adv adj

id N rel cl

S:NP V:VP

rel pron lexV

During the years that followed these three men found their destines inextricably linked.

1. You must return that overdue book to the library tomorrow morning.
2. If the club secretary wishes to contact the opposing team, he should
write a letter to the following address.
3. The grand old Duke of York had ten thousand men.
4. The small boy was quite sure that his father had told him that the earth
was flat.
5. The old grey cat loved being swung through the air.
6. His younger daughter has grown very sullen lately.
7. You can tell me whether the 9:30 train has left yet.
56 SYNTAX

8. The black pen that I accidentally left on the bus yesterday belonged to
my uncle’s sister.
9. However great may be his faults, he has achieved some notable
successes in his lifetime.
10. After the snow shower had passed the weary travellers continued
trudging through the deserted landscape.
11. It seems that the government is unaware of the difficulties which are
being caused by its policies.
12. All the fifteen bomber planes of the squadron recrossed the channel
safely that night.
 57 TEXT 1: REARRANGING ITEMS

Text 1:
Rearranging Items

So far all our considerations of the syntactic structure of English have been
concerned with what happens within sentences, and more particularly
within clauses. But we rarely speak or write in isolated clauses or sentences.
Exceptions to this statement are perhaps signs and warnings eg Keep off the
grass, Danger, overhead cable. Usually, however, whether in the
interchange of conversation or in connected prose, a number of sentences
occur. Sentences in sequence compose texts, and this term includes spoken
sequences as well as written sequences of sentences.

Within texts sentences are not totally independent entities; they are
connected in various ways with the sentences that adjoin and surround them.
Textsyntax is concerned with the means of connection between sentences,
usually between a sentence and what precedes, but also sometimes between
a sentence and what follows. Quite obviously, we cannot account for the
structure of texts in the same way that we described the structure of
sentences or clauses, by isolating each element, in this case sentences, and
giving it a function and a category label. The syntax of texts is not the same
 58 SYNTAX

as the syntax of sentences: it is concerned with the ways in which sentences

connect with each other, and not with the structure of texts as such.

Textsyntax is concerned with the description of two kinds of phenomenon.

Firstly, it describes the way in which the elements of a sentence become
rearranged in order to bring particular elements into positions of focus or
prominence as demanded by the other sentences in its immediate context.
And secondly, it describes the various devices that are used to link one
sentence implicitly or explicitly with (usually) the preceding one: these are
known as devices of cohesion. In this chapter we shall consider the ways in
which sentence elements may be rearranged, and in the following chapter
the cohesive devices operating in English.

Rearrangement of elements

There are a number of ways in which the basic order of elements in a

sentence or clause (subject—verb—object etc) may be rearranged, and two
principles of a textual nature influence such rearrangements. One of these is
the principle of end-focus, which refers to the tendency in English to put
new information towards the end of the sentence, which is at position of
prominence: the nucleus of a tone-group falls on the last lexical item in a
tone group without contrastive intonation. Compare these two sentences: I
gave John a book/I gave the book to John. Elements early in a sentence are
usually ‘given information’; they have been mentioned in the preceding text
or context.

The other principle operating in the rearrangement of sentence elements is

that of end-weight, which refers to the tendency in English to reserve the
final parts of a clause or sentence for the weightier, more complex elements.
We would be more likely to say I gave it to the fat boy than to say I gave
the fat boy it.

Passive transformation

One common way of rearranging the elements in a sentence is to transform

a basic active sentence into the passive; eg Jim gave Mary a flower
becomes in the passive Mary was given a flower by Jim or A flower was
given to Mary by Jim. The object of the active sentence becomes the subject
of the passive sentence, so taking up first position, and the subject of the
active sentence may be transformed into a by-phrase and take up final
position in a passive sentence.
 59 TEXT 1: REARRANGING ITEMS

There are two principal reasons for choosing the passive form of a sentence,
in preference to an active one. On the one hand, it enables the agent (=
subject) to be put into the end-focus position; so that in answer to the
question Who won the. battle of Waterloo? it would be normal to say The
battle of Waterloo was won by Wellington. On the other hand, the passive
form of a sentence enables the agent to be omitted from the sentence
altogether, either because the agent is not known or needs to be suppressed,
or because there is no identifiable agent; eg My favourite record has been
damaged, Hundreds of people are killed on the road every year.

Theme

We have said that the final position in a clause or sentence is one position
of prominence (end-focus). The first position in a sentence is the other.
What occurs initially is usually the theme, that is, what the sentence is
about. In an ordinary active declarative clause, such as we have mostly been
investigating, the theme is identical with the subject of the clause: the
subject is the unmarked theme in an active declarative clause eg The boy
ate four apples. In yes/no questions, the unmarked theme is the operator, eg.
Did you recognize Jim?. In wh-questions it is the wh-word, eg Who did you
see?. There are a number of ways of rearranging a clause so that the theme
is marked, that is, an element not normally expected as theme for that
particular kind of clause. This can be achieved by a simple inversion of
elements, eg Peanuts I like, but crisps I can’t stand, which has a direct
object as theme in both clauses, or Poor I may be, but I’m still happy, which
has it complement as theme in the first clause.

There are two special constructions for giving thematic and focal
prominence to a particular element in the clause. One of these is the cleft
sentence, which has the structure: it—be—focus—relative clause. Jim
found Penny last night in the casino may have the following cleft sentences:
It was Penny that Jim found last night in the casino, It was last night that
Jim found Penny in the casino, It was in the casino that Jim found Penny
last night, and It was Jim who found Penny last night in the casino. The
cleft construction is used particularly in written English, because it marks
unambiguously the focus of information. In speech this can usually be done
by means of contrastive stress and intonation, but these cannot normally be
represented in writing except by resorting to italicization, underlining and
the like.

The other special construction for giving thematic and focal prominence is
the pseudo-cleft sentence, which has the structure: Subject—verb—
complement, where either the subject or the complement (more usually the
 60 SYNTAX

subject) is a nominal relative clause; eg What seems most likely is a good

English compromise. The subject represents the theme, and the complement
is the element of focus. The verb may also he focussed in a pseudo-cleft
sentence, which is not possible with a cleft construction eg What he’s doing
is sharpening the knife. The most usual kind of wh-clauses to occur are
those introduced by what. Clauses with who, when and where are also
found, but they are more likely to occur as complement than as subject: eg
The man in the bowler hat is who I mean, The Bavarian forest is where we
often go.

There is one further quite interesting transformation worth noting in

connection with marked theme. In clauses with the structure: subject:
nominal clause—be—complement (eg To teach them is a pleasure), which
are normally realized as: It—be—complement—nominal clause (eg it is a
pleasure to teach them), the object of the nominal clause may be taken out
of the nominal clause and made the subject of the main clause, replacing it,
eg They are a pleasure to teach.

The theme of a clause is usually ‘given’ information; it links with

something that occurs in the preceding text or context. A subject noun
phrase as theme typically has a definite identifier (eg the), which marks the
noun phrase as ‘already referred to’. Sometimes, however, the subject of a
clause may be ‘new’ information, and it is inappropriate for it to occur as
theme. What often happens, therefore, is that an ‘empty’ theme is
substituted, and the new subject does not come initially. The most common
empty theme is the so-called existential ‘there’ eg There is a further point
of view to be considered, derived from A further point of view is to be
considered. Existential sentences are derivable only from sentences that
have an indefinite subject, and have a form of the verb be (either as a
lexical verb or as an auxiliary) in their verb phrase; eg Many fine pots have
been discovered on this site may be transformed into There have been many
fine pots discovered on this site. In more formal or literary usage other
verbs than be may occur, eg There may come a time when England is ruled
by a dictator.

Postponement

Besides having means for bringing elements into thematic prominence,

English also has means for transferring elements to the end of clauses and
sentences, in accordance with the principles of end-focus and end-weight.
These are called devices of postponement.
 61 TEXT 1: REARRANGING ITEMS

Perhaps the most important device of postponement is that of extraposition,

when an element (usually a nominal clause) is placed at the end of a clause
and its position in the clause is filled by a dummy or substitute, element
(normally it). The most common kind of extraposition is that of a clausal
subject; eg It amuses to watch children playing their games, derived from
To watch children playing their games amuses me; It doesn’t matter what
the result is, derived from What the result is doesn’t matter. Clausal objects
may also be extraposed, and a dummy it replaces them too; eg I find it
amusing that children take their games so seriously. Obviously the
extraposition of a clausal object may take place only if there is an element
in addition to the clausal object (complement, adjunct; or another object),
after which the clausal object may be extraposed; eg Jim owes it to Penny
that he is always so neatly turned out, where extraposition seems almost
obligatory.

Another kind of postponement is that of a direct object in a clause with one

of the following kinds of structure: subject—verb—object—complement;
subject—verb—object—adjunct; subject—verb—direct object—indirect
object. This happens if the direct object is particularly weighty or complex
eg They elected chairman the man who had worked all his life for the
honour, They found in a mud hut all five of the lost children, Jim gave to
Penny the last of the spring flowers.

A further kind of postponement affects the postmodification of a noun

phrase, If the postmodification is a clause, rather than a prepositional phrase,
then it may be moved to the end of the clause; eg The time has come to
close the meeting, The eggs were bad that you sold me last week, They
found the children in Cornwall who had disappeared the previous week.
Obviously in cases like the last example there has to be an unambiguous
connection between the relative pronoun and the antecedent head noun.
Noun phrases where the postmodification is postponed are said to be
discontinuous.

Another kind of discontinuity involving postponement is that of

comparative clauses, where postponement seems to be the norm, if not the
only possibility. For example, He has been less fortunate in his business
deals than other entrepreneurs is derived from He has been less fortunate
than other entrepreneurs in his business deals, which also sounds
acceptable. But ‘More people than used to years ago own houses’ seems to
need transformation to More people own houses than used to years ago.

All the devices discussed in-this chapter are means of rearranging the
elements in clauses and sentences. The purpose of such rearrangements is
often to sequence the information within a clause in a particular way. The
 62 SYNTAX

need for such sequencing of information arises from the fact that sentences
occur in texts; and for sentences to follow on from those that precede them,
in terms of communicative content; certain elements need to be placed in
certain positions. From the point of view of content, the clause can be
viewed in general as starting out from the theme, which is usually given
information linking to the previous context, and ending with the point of
information focus, which is often the new information in that clause. These
devices of rearrangement are particularly important in writing, where
focussing cannot be achieved by means of stress and intonation.

EXERCISE 12

Consider ways of rearranging the elements in the following sentences.

eg Christopher Columbus discovered America.

America was discovered by Christopher Columbus

It was America that Christopher Columbus discovered.
What Christopher Columbus did was discover America.

1. The old man sent his favourite grandson a wooden lorry for his first
birthday.
2. I can’t believe that Jim would do such a thing.
3. They found the man who had a scar on his cheek guilty.
4. Hundreds of elephants were gathering in the clearing.
5. Changing a car wheel is no easy task for a woman.
 63 TEXT 2: COHESION

Text 2:
Cohesion

EXERCISE 13

Fill in the gaps in the following text, where pronouns, determiners and other
connecting devices have been omitted.

‘It was dreadfully cold, snowing, and turning dark. It was ___ last evening
of the year, New Year’s Eve. In ___ cold and darkness walked a little girl.
___ was poor and both ___ head and feet were bare. Oh, ___ had had a pair
of slippers when ___ left home; ___ ___ had been too big for in truth, ___
had belonged to mother. ___ little ___ had lost ___ while hurrying across
___ street to get out of the way of two carriages that had been driving along
awfully fast. ___ ___ ___ slippers ___ could not find, and ___ ___ had been
snatched by a boy who, laughingly, shouted that ___ would use ___ as a
cradle when ___ had a child of ___ own.

___ ___ little girl walked barefoot through ___ streets. ___ feet were
swollen and red from ___ cold. ___ was carrying a little bundle of matches
 64 SYNTAX

in ___ hand ___ had ___ in apron pocket. No one had bought ___ all day,
___ given ___ so muclt as a penny. Cold and hungry, ___ walked through
___ city; cowed by life ___ poor thing!

___ snowflakes fell on ___ long yellow hair that curled so prettily at ___
neck, ___ to ___ things ___ never gave a thought. From every window of
every house, light shone, ___ ___ could smell ___ geese roasting all the
way out in ___ street. It was, ___ ___, New Year’s Eve; ___ ___ ___ did
think about.’

(from Hans Andersen, The Little Match Girl).

Most, if not all of the items left out of this text are predictable. They are
often predictable from what has gone before eg the personal pronouns. Or
they are predictable from the sequence of the content eg the conjunctions
and, but, after all. They are predictable for the very reason that they reach
back and join one sentence to another. They have a cohesive function,
enabling the sentences in a text to hang together. Looked at from an
alternative viewpoint it can be said that one sentence cannot be interpreted
except by reference to another, usually the preceding one. For example, in
She was poor and both her head and feet were bare, she and her require
reference to little girl in the previous sentence for their interpretation.

Cohesion

Besides being about the way in which information within sentences is

organized according to the demands of a text, textsyntax is also about the
ways in which sentences are linked together into a cohesive whole. Five
kinds of cohesion have been identified.* They are: reference, substitution,
ellipsis, conjunction, lexical cohesion. We shall now look at each of these
cohesive devices in turn.

Reference is defined by Halliday and Hasan as a semantic relation that

ensures the continuity of meaning in a text. It involves items that cannot be
interpreted in their own right, but which make reference to something else
for their interpretation. For example, in the nursery rhyme Doctor Foster
went to Gloucester in a shower of rain. He stepped in a puddle right up to
his middle and never went there again, the items he and his in the second
sentence are interpretable only by reference to Doctor Foster in the first,
and the item there by reference back to Gloucester.

Reference in general may be of two kinds. Exophoric reference is reference

outside the text to the situation; eg if someone says It needs a coat of paint
 65 TEXT 2: COHESION

and points to some object, then it has exophoric reference. Endophoric

reference is reference to items within the text. It may he either cataphoric,
ie forward pointing (eg this in This is how he said it …), or anaphoric, ie
backward pointing, as in the nursery rhyme example in the previous
paragraph. Only endophoric reference is cohesive, and in the majority of
cases it is anaphoric.

Cohesive reference may be of three different kinds: personal, demonstrative

and comparative.

Personal reference is by means of the personal pronouns, possessive

pronouns (mine, yours etc) and possessive identifiers (my, your etc). The
third person pronouns are nearly always cohesive, but the first and second
person pronouns may often have exophoric reference. Sometimes a pronoun,
especially it, will refer back not to a noun or a noun phrase, but to a longer
stretch; eg Curtsey while you’re thinking what to say. It saves time. Alice
wondered a little at this, but she was too much in awe of the Queen to
disbelieve it. Here the first it refers to the whole of the first sentence and the
second it to the whole of the first two sentences, ie that curtseying while
youre thinking what to say saves time.

Demonstrative reference involves the demonstratives (this, that), the

definite article (the) and the adverbs here, there, now and then. All these are
a form of verbal pointing and indicate proximity in text to the sentence in
which they occur. In the case of the demonstratives, there is a tendency to
use this to refer to something the speaker has said and that to what the other
person has said. This and that may also be used like it to refer to extended
text; in the example in the previous paragraph, the item this in the third
sentence has this function.

Comparative reference may be either general, expressing the identity,

similarity or difference between things, or particular, expressing a
qualitative or quantitative comparison; eg ‘I see nobody on the road,’ said
Alice. ‘I only wish I had such eyes,’ the king remarked.

Substitution is defined as ‘a grammatical relation, where one linguistic

item substitutes for a longer one’. The substitute item is therefore
interpretable only by reference to the original longer item. There are three
kinds of substitution: nominal, verbal, and clausal.

Nominal substitution involves the substitution of a noun as head of a noun

phrase by one or ones, or the substitution of a whole noun phrase by the
same; eg My knife is too blunt. I must get a sharper one; Give me six
currant buns. I’ll have the same. With one and ones there is always an
element of contrast, and there is no referential identity. What is involved is
 66 SYNTAX

different instances of an item, eg These biscuits are stale. Get some fresh
ones.

Verbal substitution is by means of do (to be distinguished from the

auxiliary do), and it substitutes for the lexical verb; eg ‘Did you see Jim last
week?’—‘I did on Thursday’/‘I might have done.’

Clausal substitution is by means of so, for a positive clause and not, for a
negative one. Here an entire clause is presupposed; eg ‘Is there going to be
a snow-fall?’—‘They say so/not’; Are you going to the conference? If so,
we could travel together.

Ellipsis is similar to substitution, except that in the case of ellipsis the

substitution is by nothing. An obvious structural gap occurs, which can only
be filled by reference to a previous sentence. As with substitution, ellipsis
may be nominal, verbal, or clausal.

Nominal ellipsis involves the omission of the head of a noun phrase,

sometimes together with some modifiers; eg Four other oysters followed
them. And yet another four.; ‘Which hat will you wear?’—‘This is the
nicest.’

Verbal ellipsis involves the omission of the lexical verb from a verb phrase,
and possibly an auxiliary or two, recoverable from a previous verb phrase.
For example, if one were to hear the snippet of conversation, It may or it
may not, one would know that it was elliptical, since there is no lexical verb.
That would be recoverable from a previous utterance such as, Is it going to
rain today?. Another kind of verbal ellipsis omits everything except the
lexical verb; eg ‘Has she been crying?’—No, laughing.’

Unlike clausal substitution, clausal ellipsis is not concerned with the

ellipsis of whole clauses but with the ellipsis of large parts of clauses,
whole phrases and upwards; eg ‘Who was playing the piano?’—‘Peter was.’
The whole verb phrase is not often left out in ellipsis across sentence
boundaries, but it may be within sentences eg Joan bought some roses, and
Bill some carnations. And it may be in conversation eg ‘Where has Jim
planted the roses?’—‘In the front border.’

Conjunction refers to specific devices (conjunctions) for linking one

sentence to another eg He was very uncomfortable. Nevertheless he fell fast
asleep. There are a number of words—conjunctions and adverbs—which
fulfil this function. They may be divided into four groups: additive,
adversative, causal and temporal.
 67 TEXT 2: COHESION

Additive conjunctions simply add on a sentence as if it were additional

information or an afterthought eg and, furthermore, besides, incidentally,
for instance, by contrast etc.

Adversative conjunctions draw a contrast between the sentence they

introduce or are contained in and the preceding sentence with which they
form a cohesive relationship eg yet, however, nevertheless, on the other
hand, on the contrary, in any case etc.

Causal conjunctions make a causal link between two sentences eg hence,

therefore, consequently, as a result, that being so, otherwise, in this respect
etc. And temporal conjunctions make a time link, usually of a sequential
nature, between one sentence and another eg then, after that, previously,
thereupon, meanwhile, finally, from now on, up to now etc.

Lexical cohesion refers to the use of the same, similar, or related words in
successive sentences, so that later occurrences of such words refer back to
and link up with previous occurrences. There are two broad types of lexical
cohesion: reiteration and collocation.

Reiteration may be of four kinds. Firstly, the same word may be repeated
in successive, though not necessarily contiguous sentences; eg There was a
large mushroom growing near her… She stretched herself up on tiptoe,
and peeped over the edge of the mushroom. Secondly, a synonym or near-
synonym of a word may appear in a following sentence; eg I turned to the
ascent of the peak. The climb is perfectly easy, where ascent and climb are
synonyms; Thirdly, a word may be replaced in a following sentence by
another which is semantically superordinate to it; eg Henry’s bought
himself a new Jaguar. He practically lives in the car. Here Jaguar is a term
that is included in the term car, that is to say, car is a superordinate term to
Jaguar. Fourthly, a word may be replaced in a following sentenceby a
‘general word’ which describes a general class of objects; eg ‘What shall I
do with all this crockery?’—‘Leave the stuff there.’ There are a number of
these general words which have a cohesive function in texts. Referring to
humans are: people, person, man, woman, child, boy, girl. Referring to non-
human animates is: creature. Referring to inanimate concrete nouns are:
thing, object. Referring to an inanimate concrete mass is: stuff. Referring to
inanimate abstract nouns are: business, matter, affair. Referring to actions is:
move. Referring to places is: place. And referring to facts are: question,
idea.

The other kind of lexical cohesion is collocation. This refers to the habitual
company which words keep. For example, the word book implies other
words-like page, title, read, turn over, shelf, library etc. A cohesion results,
 68 SYNTAX

then, from the occurrence of a words collocates, as well as from

occurrences of itself, its synonyms or its superordinate terms.

This concludes our discussion of the devices that English uses in order to
achieve unity and cohesiveness in texts. Without them texts would not
strictly speaking be texts, but collections of more or less isolated sentences.

Note

* See Halliday, A K, and.R Hasan Cohesion in English Longman, 1976, on

which this chapter heavily depends.

EXERCISE 14

Returning to the Hans Andersen text of Exercise 13, identify the various
cohesive devices employed in the first paragraph.