Chapter 5: Syntax: The Analysis of Sentence Structure

- To express complex ideas and thoughts, we need more than words. We need to combine words into
phrases and sentences, but not any combination would be grammatical.
- Syntax is the component of grammar that is concerned with the form of grammatical sentences.
- We start with words (that have categories), then they combine to make phrases, which also combine to
make a sentence.
- Sentences are represented with tree diagrams.
- Sentence structures are built by the operations of Merge (combine words) and Move (change the
position of elements).

5.1 Categories and Structure

We will group words into syntactic categories (parts of speech). We will discuss each of the syntactic units
in details; the words, the phrases and then the sentences.

5.1.1 Categories of Words

- Words can be grouped into categories. There are two types of categories; lexical and functional
categories.

Lexical categories are the following:

Noun (N): John, book, coffee Verb (V): eat, drink, sleep, go
Adjective (A): smart, beautiful, good Preposition (P): at, of, in, by
Adverb (Adv): slowly, now, always
Functional (or non-lexical) categories include:
Determiner (Det): the, an, a, this Auxiliary (Aux): modals (will, can) and non-modals (be, have, do)
Conjunction (Con): and, or, but Degree words (Deg): so, too, very, more, quite

- How do we determine the categories of words? There are three criteria to determine categories of words.
1. Meaning: nouns name entities (people and things), verbs denotes actions and feelings, adjectives refer
to the properties of entities and adverbs refers to the properties of actions. But, we cannot depend on
these relations all the time. For example, truth is a noun but it does not refer to an entity in the world.
Also, some nouns denotes actions (like verbs) as in give me a push. Moreover, some words have
similar meaning but different categories (he likes cars, he is fond of cars).
2. Inflection: another way to determine the category of words is by the inflections they take. For
example, nouns take the plural marker –s while verbs take the marker for past tense –ed. Again, we
cannot depend on this criterion all the time because not all verbs take the suffix –ed to mark the past
tense (as sang, went, ate).
3. Distribution: the third way to determine the category of words is by distribution (the type of words
that co-occur with the target word). For example, nouns come with determiners (the boy), verbs come
with auxiliary (will go) and adjective come with degree words (so smart).

5.1.2 Phrase Structure

- Words do not directly form sentences (sentences are not simply series of words in a linear structure).
Rather, there is a hierarchy inside the sentence.
- Words combine to form phrases (the boy, went to school, in class) first, which later combine to form the
sentence.
- There are three main parts in the internal structure of all phrases; heads, specifiers and complements. We
use the x-bar theory or schema in representing them.

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1. Heads: the head is the only obligatory part in a phrase. The categories
of N, V, A and P can function as heads.
2. Specifiers: They can be occupied by functional categories like determiners
(before N), preverbal adverbs (before V) or degree words (before A or Adv).
3. Complements: they are occupied by phrases (not single words) as NP or PP.

Practice: Draw a tree diagram for the following phrases. (Note: names and pronouns are N)
NP: a map of Canada VP: always see her AP: so good at sport PP: almost in class

The Merge Operation: it is used to build sentences by combining words according to the x-bar schema to
form phrases that are merged to form sentences.

5.1.3 Sentences
- It is the largest unit in syntactic structure.
- The sentence is considered a TP (Tense Phrase) with T (Tense) as the obligatory head, the subject
NP in the specifier position and VP as the complement of T.
- Modal auxiliaries (can, could, will, would, may, might, shall, should, must) are examples of T
category as they inherently express tense.

Practice: Draw a tree diagram for the following sentences.

The boy should eat the meal The kids will stop at the corner

5.1.4 Tests for Phrase Structure

To make sure that a group of words form a constituent (or a syntactic unit), we use three tests.
1. The substitution test: syntactic units can be replaced by one word. In a sentence like the children will
stop at the corner, the NP in the subject position can be replaced by pronouns (they will stop at the
corner), VP can be replaced by do so (the children will do so) and PP can be replaced by there (the
children will stop there).
2. The movement test: syntactic units can be moved as a single unit to a different position in the
sentence. For the above sentence, we can say (at the corner, the children will stop).

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3. The coordination test: a syntactic unit can be joined to another syntactic unit (of the similar category)
by a coordinating conjunction (and, but, or). In the above example, we can say (the children will stop at
the corner and look both ways).

5.2 Complement Options

- The type and number of complements that a head can take is stored in our lexicon as a part of the
head’s entry.
- The type and number of complements that a head can take determine the subcategory of the head.

5.2.1 Complement Options for Verbs

- Some verbs do not take any complement, and they are subcategorized as intransitive verbs (as
arrive and die).
- The subcategory of transitive verbs take one NP complement (as devour and cut).
- Other verbs can take AP (as be and become) or PP (as talk and refer).
- Another subcategory involves two complements: NP NP (as give and hand) NP PP (as send, buy and
put).

5.2.2 Complement Options for Other Categories

- Nouns can take one PP complement (as the memory of a friend, the book of poetry) or sometimes
two complements PP PP (as an argument with the teacher about politics).
- Adjectives can take one complement of PP (as curious about China, fond of chocolate).
- Prepositions mostly take one complement of NP (as in the house), and sometimes take one PP
complement (as out of the bucket) while sometimes it does not take any complements (as go down).

5.2.3 Complement Clauses

- Sometimes verbs take another sentence (a clause) as a complement (as the fans hope that the team
won), and we call it complement clause CP.
- Complement Clauses (CPs) have the complementizer C as the head, and it is occupied by words as
that, whether and if. The complement is the sentence TP.

Practice: Draw a tree diagram for the following sentences.

▪ The teacher gives the test to the students (V NP PP)
▪ The mother knows that the party is at school (V CP)

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5.3 Move
- A large number of sentences are built by the Merge operation that combine words according to (1) the
X-Bar Scheme and (2) the subcategorization properties of words.
- There are other sentences (like questions) that need another operation, which is Move (it moves the
items from one position to another).

5.3.1 Yes-No Question

- They are questions which are answered with yes or no. Examples are like ‘Should the girls leave?’ and
‘Can we meet?’
- In questions, the auxiliary verbs come at the beginning of the sentence (before the subject), not in the
usual position after the verb as in ‘the girls should leave’ and ‘we can meet’. So, we say that the
auxiliary verb ‘should’ moved from its position to the beginning.
- We used the operation of Move on the original word order to transport the auxiliary verb from T
position to C position (in CP) → Inversion.
- We will assume that all sentences have a higher level of CP. In questions, C has the feature (+Q) while
in statements C has (-Q).
- In embedded questions like ‘I wonder whether the girls should leave’, the auxiliary verb ‘should’ in T
cannot move to C because it is occupied by the complementizer ‘whether’.
- Trees:

5.3.2 WH Questions
- They are questions that need information in the snwer, and begin with a question word. Examples are
like ‘What will they talk about?’ and ‘Which languages can John speak?’
- In addition to the movement of the auxiliary verb, the WH word also moves. So, the original word order
is ‘they will talk about what’ (a complement of P) and ‘John can speak which languages’ (a complement
of the verb).
- Another Move operation is applied here to move the WH word from its original position to the specifier
of CP → WH Movement

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- In the above WH question ‘which languages can John speak?’, we ask about the object. But, in WH
questions like ‘who will cut the cake?’, we ask about the subject. So, the WH word moved from the
subject position (a specifier of TP) to the specifier of CP.
- Trees:

5.3.3 Deep Structure and Surface Structure

- We call the sentences with the original word order deep structure (or D-structure). This level is created
as a result of Merge operation.
- We call the sentence with the new word order (the questions) as the surface structure (or S-structure).
This level is created as a result of Move operation.
- Example: John can speak which languages → deep structure
Which languages can John speak? → surface structure

5.4 Universal Grammar and Parametric Variation

- Although every language is different (in vocabulary at least), there are similarities in how syntax works.
Universal Grammar (UG) is a term for the system of categories, operations and principles shared by
all languages.
- UG also leaves room for variation. Languages can differ in how certain parameters are set. You can
think of parameters as a group of switches that each language can set differently.
- Examples of the parameters:
1. The Head-Complement Parameter:
The head can come before or after the complement. In English, we say ‘in school’ but in Japanese,
they say ‘school in’.
2. The WH Movement Parameter
The WH word can move to the specifier position in CP or just stay in its original position. In
English, we say ‘where can we eat?’ but in other languages they may say ‘we can eat where?’
3. Verb Raising
- In English, only modal auxiliaries can occupy T position while main verbs stay in V (in VP).
- In some languages (like French), main verbs move from VP to T, so they say something like ‘he
works always’. We call this movement verb raising.

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 - In English, main verbs do not move to T, so we say ‘he always works’.
- Because of this, Inversion (Move T to C) can apply to main verbs in French to make questions
‘works he always?’, but in English we cannot apply inversion because verbs do not move to T.
- In English, only auxiliary verbs (non-modal) move to T like have and be as in ‘they have cut the
cake’ and its question ‘have they cut the cake?’.
- Trees:

5.5 Additional Structures

Now, we know how to analyze most of the syntactic structures. More types of sentences are discussed here.

5.5.1 Modifiers
- They are words and phrases that describe properties of the head. For
example, adjectives are modifiers of N (a good friend of the family) and
adverbs are modifiers of V (read the instructions carefully).
- Modifiers are introduced by an additional X’ level.
- Because we can have countless modifiers as in ‘the sweet nice little girl’,
we can have a countless number of X’ levels.

5.5.2 Relative Clauses

- The modifier is not a phrase. The modifier is another CP.
- Example: an easy course (the modifier is AP)
a course which students prefer (the modifier is CP)
- The relative clause gives information about the noun on its left.
- Relative clauses are similar to WH questions in two ways.
1. both structures begin with a WH word as which, who, where.
2. the WH word moved from its original position to the specifier of CP
- To represent the D-structure of relative clause, we should show if the WH word originally occurred as a
complement of the V or as the subject.