Grammatical Function & Syntactic Linkage

Arranged to fulfill the course assignment Morphology/Syntax

Lecturer : Merliyani Putri Anggraini, M.Pd

Presented by Group 3

1. ADE APRILIA : 1611040404

2. FAJRIA SRI A : 1611040357
3. LENI SUSIANA : 1611040347
4. RINA YULI AGELIA : 1611040391
5. RISQA APRILIA : 1611040356

ENGLISH EDUCATION
TARBIYAH AND TEACHER TRAINING FACULTY
STATE ISLAMIC UNIVERSITY OF RADEN INTAN LAMPUNG
2018

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 TABLE OF CONTENTS

TITLE PAGE............................................................................................... i

TABLE OF CONTENTS............................................................................. ii

CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION................................................................. 1
A. Background...................................................................................... 1
B. Problem formuation......................................................................... 1
C. Objective Problem............................................................................ 2

CHAPTER II. DISCUSSION...................................................................... 3

A. Grammatical Function...................................................................... 2
1. Definition................................................................................... 2
2. Subject........................................................................................ 2
3. Direct Objet................................................................................ 5
4. Oblique Object and Direct Object.............................................. 6
B. Syntactic Linkage..................... ...................................................... 9
1. Definition .................................................................................. 9
2. Agreement.................................................................................. 9
3. Government............................................................................... 12
4. Syntacic Lingkage English......................................................... 13

CHAPTER III. CONCLUSION................................................................... 17

REFERENCES............................................................................................. 18

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 CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

A. Background of The Problem

We have seen that in a given clause the verb can be regarded as the head,
controlling the other major phrases. Two sets of concepts bear on the relationship
between the verb in a clause and its complements; one is the set of grammatical
functions or grammatical relations, that is, subject, direct object, indirect
object/second object and oblique object, and the other is the set of roles such as
Agent and Patient.

Syntactic linkage has to do with the devices (mainly morphological) by

which speakers can signal which words, phrases or clauses are linked. It is a
general concept which subsumes the traditional concepts of agreement and
government. As we will see, the traditional distinction does not sit easily with the
analysis of phrases into heads and modifiers, with heads controlling the modifiers.
Some parts of the traditional concepts are compatible with the view that verbs are
the heads of clauses; but others are not, particularly the relationship between
subject noun and verb.

B. Problem Formulation
1. What is Grammatical Function ?
2. What is Syntactic Linkage ?
C. Objective Problem
1. To know what is grammatical function
2. To know what is syntactic linkage

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 CHAPTER II

DISCUSSION

A. GRAMMATICAL FUNCTION
1. Definition
The definition of grammatical is anything that has to do with sentences,
punctuation, or the correct ways to write or speak a language.
An example of something grammatical is a class on English creative writing.
Refer to functional relationships between constituents in a clause. The
standard examples of grammatical functions from traditional grammar
are subject, direct object, and indirect object. In recent times, the syntactic
functions (more generally referred to as grammatical relations), typified by the
traditional categories of subject and object, have assumed an important role in
linguistic theorizing, within a variety of approaches ranging from generative
grammar to functional and cognitive theories. Many modern theories of grammar
are likely to acknowledge numerous further types of grammatical relations (e.g.
complement, specifier, predicative, etc.). The role of grammatical relations in
theories of grammar is greatest in dependency grammars, which tend to posit
dozens of distinct grammatical relations. Every head-dependent dependency bears
a grammatical function.

2. Subject
The subject in a simple English sentence such as Johnruns, John is a
teacher, or John was hit by a car is the person or thing about whom the statement
is made, in this case 'John'. Traditionally the subject is the word or phrase which
controls the verb in the clause, that is to say with which the
verb agrees (John is but John and Mary are). If there is no verb, as in John - what
an idiot!, or if the verb has a different subject, as in John - I can't stand him!, then
'John' is not considered to be the grammatical subject, but can be described as the
'topic' of the sentence.

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 These definitions seem clear enough for simple sentences such as the
above, but as will be shown in the article below, problems in defining the subject
arise when an attempt is made to extend the definitions to more complex
sentences and to languages other than English. For example, in the sentence It is
difficult to learn English, the grammatical subject seems to be the word 'it', and
yet arguably the 'real' subject (the thing that is difficult) is 'to learn English'. (A
sentence such as It was John who broke the window is more complex still.)
Sentences beginning with a locative phrase, such as There is a problem, isn't
there?, in which the tag question 'isn't there?' seems to imply that the subject is
the adverb'there', also create difficulties for the definition of subject.
a. Characteristic subject :
 The subject precedes the verb in declarative statement
These boys build houses
 It agrees in number with the verb
 It is compulsory in English structure
 It goes after the preposition BY in passive constuctions :
Houses are built by these man
 Single words, phrases and clauses might appear in subject position

b. Criteria to identify the subject

a. Syntactic criterion
b. Morpho/syntactic criterion
c. Semantic criterion

c. Types of Subject :
Example :

(1) The tigers hunt prey at night.

Tigers precedes the verb. It agrees with the verb in number, as becomes clear
when it is made singular: The tiger hunts its prey at night. In the active
construction, it is never marked by any preposition. The corresponding full

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passive clause is Prey is hunted by the tigers at night; in the passive clause, the
subject of (1), the tigers, turns up inside the prepositional phrase by the tigers.
The above criteria – agreement in number with the verb, never being
preceded by a preposition, occurring in the by phrase in the passive – are
grammatical, and the noun they pick out in a given clause is the grammatical
subject of that clause. Tigers has another interesting property: it refers to the
Agent in the situation described by (1).
Many analysts consider that tigers refers to the Agent in the passive
sentence too, although it is inside the by prepositional phrase and at the end of the
sentence. They call tigers the logical subject, by which is meant that in either
syntactic construction tigers denotes the Agent. That is, its role in the situation
does not change. Other analysts maintain that in the passive sentence tigers no
longer denotes the Agent but rather the Path by which the action reaches and
affects the prey. Such arguments lead us into a very old and unresolved
controversy as to whether language corresponds directly to objective reality or
whether it reflects a mental representation of the outside world. For the moment,
we put this controversy aside; but it will return (possibly to haunt us) when we
take up the topic of roles. All we need do here is note the assumptions that lie
behind the notion of logical subject, and to understand that in any case the
grammatical subject NP in an active construction of English typically denotes an
Agent. This follows from the fact that most verbs in English denote actions.
A third type of subject is the psychological subject. In (1), tigers is the starting
point of the message; it denotes the entities about which the speaker wishes to say
something, as the traditional formula puts it.
Example (1) is a neutral sentence: it has a neutral word order, and the three types
of subject coincide on the NP tigers. Psychological subject and grammatical
subject need not coincide. In This prey tigers hunted, the psychological subject is
this prey.
In contemporary linguistic analysis, the notion of psychological subject has long
been abandoned, since it encompasses various concepts that can only be treated
properly if they are teased apart. Again, the details need not concern us. What is

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important is that in sentences such as (1) the grammatical subject noun phrase
typically denotes the Agent and typically denotes the entity which speakers
announce and of which they then make a predication. It is the regular coincidence
of grammatical subject, Agent and psychological subject in English and other
languages of Europe that makes the notion of subject so natural to native speakers
and to analysts.

3. Direct Object
Traditional grammar defines the object in a sentence as the entity that is
acted upon by the subject. There is thus a primary distinction between subjects and
objects that is understood in terms of the action expressed by the verb, e.g. Tom
studies grammar—Tom is the subject and grammar is the object. Traditional
theories of sentence structure divide the simple sentence into a subject and
a predicate, whereby the object is taken to be part of the predicate.

Direct objects the concept of direct object is as widely used as that of subject
and has just as long a tradition. Nonetheless, it took turns out to be elusive. As
with grammatical subject, it is possible to provide criteria for direct objects in
English, but the criteria do not necessarily carry over to other languages. Keeping
to the [ACTIVE DECLARATIVE] construction, we can say that in sentences
such as the NP following the verb is the direct object. "In traditional grammatical
descriptions, the grammatical function borne by her in the English example in
has sometimes been called the 'indirect object,' and the book has been called the
'direct object':

1). He gave her a book.

The phrase the book is also traditionally assumed to be the direct object

2). He gave a book to her.

The classification of the book as a direct object in both examples may have a
semantic rather than a syntactic basis: there may be a tendency to assume that the
book must bear the same grammatical function in each instance because its

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semantic role does not change. View differs: in example 1, the phrase her bears
the OBJ function, while in example 2, the phrase a book is the OBJ.

"Within the transformational tradition, evidence for the LFG classification for
English came from certain formulations of the rule of passivization, which applies
uniformly to 'transform' an object into a subject."

4. Oblique Object and Indirect Object

Recent work in syntax deploys the concept of oblique object; in English,
any noun phrase that is the complement of a preposition is an oblique object,
where the prepositional phrase is itself the complement of a verb. In 1, to Onegin,
to Egil say and for Jane are oblique objects.
(1) a. Tatiana wrote to Onegin.
b. Magnus went to Egilsay.
c. Frank bought a piano for Jane.
Phrases such as to Onega in used to be analyzed as containing indirect
object nouns, but this concept of indirect object is problematical. Grammars of
English would merely refer to verbs such as tell, say, show and give, which occur
in the construction V NP1 TO NP2or V NP2NP1: compare Celia gave the car to
Ben vs Celia gave Ben the car, where the car is NP1and Ben is NP2. The indirect
object was said to be the noun phrase preceded by to, and the relevant verbs were
either listed individually or divided into classes labeled ‘verbs of saying’, ‘verbs
of giving’ and so on in order to avoid the label ‘indirect object’ being assigned to
phrases such as to Dundeein He went to Dundee.
In fact, it is difficult to separate indirect objects from adverbs of directions.
It is sometimes suggested that the two can be distinguished on the grounds that
indirect object NPs contain animate nouns, whereas adverbs of place contain
inanimate nouns denoting countries, towns and other places. If this were correct,
we would expect inanimate nouns not to occur immediately to the right of a verb
such as sentin (2) and (3).
(2) a. Lucy sent a letter to Isadore.

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 b. Lucy sent Isadore a letter.
(3) a. The Government sent an envoy to China.
b. (*)The Government sent China an envoy.
It has been suggested that (2b) is not correct, but the fault is semantic and
not syntactic. Example (2b) has the interpretation that a person is sent to China so
that China can use him/her as an envoy. This is a rather unusual situation – at least
out of context, (2b) seems odd. The oddness can be removed by substituting
different lexical items, as in (3). (3) The company sent China its senior mining
engineers to help plan the new mines.
Example (3) presents China not just as a geographical area but as a body
that is to benefit from the engineers. With the appropriate interpretation, then, an
inanimate noun can occur to the right of the verb. Another suggestion is that
indirect objects can occur immediately to the right of the verb but not immediately
to the right of genuine adverbs of direction. (Genuine adverbs of direction would
not include Chinain (3).) This suggestion is correct, but it still fails to distinguish
indirect objects, because an indirect object noun cannot always occur immediately
to the right of the verb, as shown by (4).
(4) a. *The experts attributed Raphael this picture.
b. *I forwarded Winifred the letter.
c. *The manager presented the foreman a gold watch.
d. *Kick John the ball.
e. *Monica hit Martina the ball.
f. *The critics ascribe Shakespeare this play.
The particular examples in (4) have been tested on many classes of
students at all levels. Some have accepted some of the examples, especially (4b),
but the vast majorities have not accepted any of them. Other evidence that attacks
any clear distinction between indirect objects and adverbs of direction is presented
in (5)–(6), which illustrate certain syntactic patterns common to indirect objects
and adverbs of direction. The first shared property is that both can occur in WH
interrogatives with the preposition to at the end or beginning of the clause.
(5) a. Who did John send a book to?

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 b. To whom did John send a book?
(6) a. What place did you travel to?
b. To what place did you travel?
Another property in common is that both can occur in active interrogative WH
clauses with to omitted, but not in passive WH interrogatives.
(7) a. Who did John send the book?
b. What place did John send the book?
(8) a. *Who was the book sent by John.
b. *What place was the book sent by John?
Indirect objects and adverbs of direction can occur at the front of clauses preceded
by only. In such constructions, the preposition to cannot be omitted – compare the
indirect object in (9) and the adverb of directions in (10).
(9) a. Only to the best students would he give this book.
b. *Only the best students would he give this book.
(10) a. Only to Glasgow would he go by train (because the service is fast).
b. *Only Glasgow would he travel by train.
The same applies to the cleft construction in (11) and (12), where the indirect
object to the best students in (11) and the adverb of direction to Stromnessin (12)
are preceded by it is.
(11) a. It is to the best students that he gives this book.
b. *It is the best students he gives this book.
(12) a. It is to Stromness that he is going.
b. *It is Stromness that he is going.
There is one difference : indirect objects are questioned by who…to or to whom,
but adverbs of direction are questioned by where. However, this is one difference
to be set against a number of similarities, and it could in any case be argued that
the difference does not reflect a syntactic category but a difference in the sorts of
entities that are the end point of the movement, where being reserved for places,
who for human beings. The analysis indicated by the above data is that we cannot
maintain the traditional concept of indirect object as the to phrase with verbs such
as give and show and that all verb complements introduced by a preposition

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should be treated as one category, namely oblique objects. The concept of indirect
object is not dead, however. Some traditional analyses applied it to, for example,
the phrase to Harrietin (13) and to the phrase Harrietin (14).
(13) Emma gave advice to Harriet.
(14) Emma gave Harriet advice.
The label ‘indirect object’ is useful for Harrietin (13). It can be declared to
reflect the fact that while Harrietis an object – compare Harriet was given advice
by Emma– it is felt by many analysts to be less of a direct object than advice, even
though advice in (14) is not next to the verb.

B. SYNTACTIC LINKAGE
1. Definition
Syntactic linkage refers to the devices used by speakers to signal which
word can be linked to form coherent clauses. There are two linguistic
phenomena ; Agreement and Government.

2. Agreement
Agreement or concord (abbreviated AGR) happens when a word changes
form depending on the other words to which it relates. It is an instance
of inflection, and usually involves making the value of some grammatical
category (such as gender or person) "agree" between varied words or parts of the
sentence.
Agreement generally involves matching the value of some grammatical
category between different constituents of a sentence (or sometimes between
sentences, as in some cases where a pronoun is required to agree with
its antecedent or referent). Some categories that commonly trigger grammatical
agreement are noted below.
a. Person
Agreement based on grammatical person is found mostly
between verb and subject. An example from English (I am vs. he is) has been
given in the introduction to this article. Agreement between pronoun (or

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 corresponding possessive adjective) and antecedent also requires the selection
of the correct person. For example, if the antecedent is the first person noun
phrase Mary and I, then a first person pronoun (we/us/our) is required;
however, most noun phrases (the dog, my cats, Jack and Jill, etc.) are third
person, and are replaced by a third person pronoun (he/she/it/they etc.).

b. Number
Agreement based on grammatical number can occur between verb and
subject, as in the case of grammatical person discussed above. In fact the two
categories are often conflated within verb conjugation patterns: there are
specific verb forms for first person singular, second person plural and so on.
Some examples:
I really am (1st pers. singular) vs. We really are (1st pers. plural)

 The boy sings (3rd pers. singular) vs. The boys sing (3rd pers. plural)

Again as with person, there is agreement in number between pronouns (or

their corresponding possessives) and antecedents:

 The girl did her job vs. The girls did their job

Agreement also occurs between nouns and their specifier and modifiers, in
some situations. This is common in languages such as French and Spanish,
where articles, determiners and adjectives (both attributive and predicative)
agree in number with the nouns they qualify:

 le grand homme ("the great man") vs. les grands hommes ("the great
men")
 el hombre alto ("the tall man") vs. los hombres altos ("the tall men")

In English this is not such a common feature, although there are certain
determiners that occur specifically with singular or plural nouns only:

 One big car vs. Two big cars

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  Much great work vs. Many great works

c. Gender

In languages in which grammatical gender plays a significant role, there is

often agreement in gender between a noun and its modifiers. For example,
in French:

 le grand homme ("the big man"; homme is masculine)

vs. la grande chaise ("the big chair"; chaise is feminine)

Such agreement is also found with predicate adjectives: l'homme est

grand ("the man is big") vs. la chaise est grande ("the chair is big").
(However, in some languages, such as German, this is not the case; only
attributive modifiers show agreement.)

In the case of verbs, gender agreement is less common, although it

may still occur. For example, in the French compound past tense, the past
participle agrees in certain circumstances with the subject or with an object
(see passé composé for details). In Russianand most other Slavic languages,
the form of the past tense agrees in gender with the subject.

There is also agreement in gender between pronouns and antecedents.

Examples of this can be found in English (although English pronouns
principally follow natural gender rather than grammatical gender):

The man reached his destination vs. The ship reached her/its destination

For more detail see Gender in English.

d. Case

In languages that have a system of cases, there is often agreement by case

between a noun and its modifiers. For example, in German:

 der gute Mann ("the good man", nominative case)

vs. des guten Mann(e)s ("of the good man", genitive case)

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 In fact, the modifiers of nouns in languages such as German and Latin agree
with their nouns in number, gender and case; all three categories are conflated
together in paradigms of declension.

Case agreement is not a significant feature of English (only personal

pronouns and the pronoun who have any case marking). Agreement between
such pronouns can sometimes be observed:

d. Who came first – he or his brother? vs. Whom did you see – him or his
brother?

3. Government
In grammar and theoretical linguistics, government or rection refers to
the relationship between a word and its dependents. One can discern between at
least three concepts of government: the traditional notion of case government, the
highly specialized definition of government in some generative models of syntax,
and a much broader notion in dependency grammars.

English has largely lost its case system although personal pronouns still have three
cases, which are simplified forms of the nominative, accusative and genitive
cases. They are used with personal pronouns: subjective case (I, you, he, she, it,
we, they, who, whoever), objective case (me, you, him, her, it, us, them, whom,
whomever) and possessive case (my, mine, your, yours, his, her, hers, its, our,
ours, their, theirs,whose, whosever ). Forms such as I, he and we are used for the
subject ("I kicked the ball"), and forms such as me, him and us are used for the
object ("John kicked me")

Traditional case government

In traditional Latin and Greek (and other) grammars, government is the
control by verbs and prepositions of the selection of grammatical features of other
words. Most commonly, a verb or preposition is said to "govern" a
specific grammatical case if its complement must take that case in a
grammatically correct structure (see: case government).[1] For example, in Latin,
most transitive verbs require their direct object to appear in the accusative case,

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while the dative case is reserved for indirect objects. Thus, the phrase I see
you would be rendered as Te video in Latin, using the accusative form te for the
second person pronoun, and I give a present to you would be rendered as Tibi
donum do, using both an accusative (donum) for the direct and a dative (tibi; the
dative of the second person pronoun) for the indirect object; the phrase I help you,
however, would be rendered as Tibi faveo, using only the dative form tibi. The
verb favere (to help), like many others, is an exception to this default government
pattern: its one and only object must be in the dative. Although no direct object in
the accusative is controlled by the specific verb, this object is traditionally
considered to be an indirect one, mainly because passivization is unavailiable
except perhaps in an impersonal manner and for certain verbs of this type. A
semantic alternation may also be achieved when different case constructions are
available with a verb: Id credo (id is an accusative) means I believe this, I have
this opinion and Ei credo (ei is a dative) means I trust this, I confide in this.

Prepositions (and postpositions and circumpositions, i.e. adpositions) are

like verbs in their ability to govern the case of their complement, and like many
verbs, many adpositions can govern more than one case, with distinct
interpretations. For example in Italy would be in Italia, Italia being
an ablative case form, but towards Italy would be in Italiam, Italiam being an
accusative case form.

4. Syntactic Linkage English

Modern English does not have a particularly large amount of agreement, although
it is present.

Apart from verbs, the main examples are the determiners “this” and “that”, which
become “these” and “those” respectively when the following noun is plural:

this woman — these women

that dog — those dogs

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All regular verbs (and nearly all irregular ones) in English agree in the third-
person singular of the present indicative by adding a suffix of either -s or -es. The
latter is generally used after stems ending in the sibilants sh, ch, ss or zz (e.g. he
rushes, it lurches, she amasses, it buzzes.)

Present tense of to love:

Number

Person

Singular Plural

First I love we love

Secon
you love you love
d

Third he/she/it loves they love

There are not many irregularities in this formation:

 to have, to go and to do render has, goes and does.

The highly irregular verb to be is the only verb with more agreement than this in
the present tense.Present tense of to be:

Number
Person
Singular Plural

First I am we are

Secon you are you are

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 d

Third he/she/it is they are

In English, defective verbs generally show no agreement for person or number,

they include the modal

verbs: can, may, shall, will, must, should, ought.

In Early Modern English agreement existed for the second person singular of all
verbs in the present tense, as well as in the past tense of some common verbs. This
was usually in the form -est, but -st and -t also occurred. Note that this does not
affect the endings for other persons and numbers.

Example present tense forms: thou wilt, thou shalt, thou art, thou hast, thou canst.
Example past tense forms: thou wouldst, thou shouldst, thou wast, thou
hadst, thou couldst

Note also the agreement shown by to be even in the subjunctive mood.

Imperfect subjunctive of to be in Early modern English

Number

Person

Singular Plural

First (if) I were (if) we were

Second (if) thou wert (if) you were

Third (if) he/she/it were (if) they were

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However, for nearly all regular verbs, a separate thou form was no longer
commonly used in the past tense. Thus the auxiliary verb to do is used, e.g. thou
didst help, not *thou helpedst.

Latin

Compared with English, Latin is an example of a highly inflected language. The

consequences for agreement are thus:

Verbs must agree in person and number, and sometimes in gender, with their
subjects. Articles and adjectives must agree in case, number and gender with the
nouns they modify.

Sample Latin (Spanish) verb: the present indicative active of portare (portar), to
carry:

porto (porto) - I carry

portas (portas) - you [singular] carry
portat (porta) - he carries
portamus (portamos) - we carry
portatis (portáis) - you [plural] carry
portant, (portan) - they carry
In Latin, a pronoun such as "ego" and "tu" is only inserted for contrast and
selection. Proper nouns and common nouns functioning as subject are nonetheless
frequent. For this reason, Latin is described as a null-subject language.

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 CHAPTER III
CONCLUSION

The subject noun and the verb are linked in number (in English) and in
person and number in other languages. Direct object nouns, in English,
immediately follow the verb in the active declarative construction and correspond
to the grammatical subject of passive clauses. In languages with sets of case
suffixes, grammatical subject nouns take one set of case suffixes and direct object
nouns another. In Indo-European languages, these are nominative for subject and
accusative for direct object. Oblique objects are nouns that are complement to a
preposition, as in (spoke) about music and (sent the letter)to the manager. In
examples such as gave a present to Bill, with verbs such as give, show, and tell , to
Bill was traditionally called the indirect object. Since these are very difficult to
distinguish from directional phrases, the notion of indirect object has been
abandoned in favors of oblique object but has been kept for the construction with
three noun phrases.
Many languages have devices which signal which words belong together
as head and modifiers; that is, they signal syntactic linkage. Traditionally, two
types of devices are recognised, namely agreement and government. Agreement
was applied to examples in which a head and its modifier were both marked for
some property. In many languages, the head noun in a noun phrase and the
adjectives that modify it all carry markings for case and number, while the subject
noun in a clause and the verb both carry markings for person and number.
Government was applied in constructions in which the head was not marked but
the modifier was. In spite of the traditional distinction, instances of agreement and
government all involve a head assigning some property or properties to its
modifiers. The current preferred view is that all syntactic linkage is government.

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 REFERENCE

Miller, Jim. 2002. An Introduction to English Syntax. United Kingdom :

Edinburgh University Press.
Sells Peter, Kim Jong Bok. 2008. English Syntax an Introduction. Seoul,
Korea : Kyunghee University
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_Relation

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