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Unit 1

This document discusses syntax and common myths and misconceptions about grammar. It covers the following key points in 3 sentences: Syntax refers to the rules governing sentence structure in a language. The document debunks several myths, including that grammar is meaningless, arbitrary, or cannot be learned by some students. It also provides examples of phrase structure trees and rules to illustrate syntactic categories and the constituent structure of sentences.
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0% found this document useful (0 votes)
60 views47 pages

Unit 1

This document discusses syntax and common myths and misconceptions about grammar. It covers the following key points in 3 sentences: Syntax refers to the rules governing sentence structure in a language. The document debunks several myths, including that grammar is meaningless, arbitrary, or cannot be learned by some students. It also provides examples of phrase structure trees and rules to illustrate syntactic categories and the constituent structure of sentences.
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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UNIT 1 G&S

COMMON MYTHS AND


MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT
GRAMMAR
Myths

An unproved or false collective belief that


is used to justify a social institution.
Myth 1
“Grammar is acquired naturally; it does not need to
be taught.”
Conscious knowledge= prescriptive rules
Unconscious knowledge= mental grammar… parallel
to learning motor skills
pre‑programmed to learn language
All that’s needed for language to emerge is
appropriate input data
Then what was it your thought you were learning as
a grammar?
Non‑standard English
‘two negatives make a positive’,
I didn’t do nothing wrong.
Languages like French and Breton do use double
negatives
(2) Je ne mange jamais de viande. (French)
I negative eat never of meat
‘I never eat meat.’

Use of me
MYTH 2
Myth #2:
“Grammar is a meaningless collection of rules.”
Grammar involves language form, meaning and
use.
MYTH 3
“Grammar consists of arbitrary rules.”
Not all of it is arbitrary.
MYTH 4
“Grammar cannot be learned by students with some
learning styles and disabilities.”
There has been no proof to show that some students
couldn’t learn grammar.
Learn to transfer their knowledge of grammatical
concepts from oral to written language.
MYTH 5
“Grammar is boring.”
Derived from the impression that grammar can only
be taught through repetition and other rote
skills.
Teachers can demystify abstract grammatical
terminology so that students can write and read
with greater competence and confidence.
MISCONCEPTION
A view or opinion that is incorrect because it is
based on faulty thinking or understanding.
Myth: Writing well is a gift.
Fact: Writing well is a learned skill.
Students are taught to write through a structured
process.
Great writers are made not born.
Myth: Writing is mainly about poetry and
fiction.
Fact: Writing is not mainly about poetry and
fiction.
Writing is mostly to inform, to explain,
or to persuade.
Myth: Writers are people who have
memorized big books of grammar rules.
Fact: Grammar is not a problem.
Language including grammar, is an inborn capability of
the human brain.
You don’t have to be able to name and classify the
parts of your language to use them.
Myth: Writing well is often thought as a single
special skill.
Fact: Writing well is the cumulative outcome of
mastering a large number of skills.
We need to apply grammar and vocabulary skills.
Organize the paragraphs
Structure an essay
Mastery of skills to be able to use them all together
Myth: There is a single writing process that all
students should follow.
Fact: Most students follow the writing process in their
own unique way.
Pre- writing, editing, revising
SYNTAX
WHAT IS SYNTAX?
The Sentence Patterns of Language
Grammar
Mental representation of a speaker’s linguistic
competence
What a speaker knows about the language, including
its phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics and
lexicon
Syntax
The rules of sentence formation
The component of the mental grammar that
represents speakers’ knowledge of the structure of
phrases and sentence
syn, "together", and táxis, "an ordering“
Arrangement
Refers directly to the rules and principles that govern
the sentence structure of any individual language
Structure (word order)
Chief swore president the Justice the in new.
.
.
Sequence is made up of meaningful words
DOES IT MAKE SENSE?
Every sentence is a sequence of words
But not every sequence of words is a sentence
Sequence of words that conform to the rules of
syntax are said to be …
Grammatically well formed
Those that violate the syntactic rules are
therefore … grammatically ill-formed
sentences
What Grammaticality is Based On
Determined by rules shared by the speakers of a
language
Example:
Jack and Jill ran the hill up.
I am proud to be my mother.
Vicente believes to be a gentleman.
Joana ate the baby.
What Grammaticality is Not Based On
It is not based on
What is taught in school but on the rules constructed
unconsciously as children
Children acquire most of the syntactic rules of their
language even before learning to read.
Does not depend on having heard the sentence
before.
Does not depend on the truth of the sentence
If it did, lying would be impossible.
Example:
I look like Angelina Jolie.
Syntactic Rules Accounts for:
Grammaticality of the sentence
Word order
Structural ambiguity
Grammatical relations
Whether different structures have different
meanings
The creative aspect of language
What else do you know about syntax?
Ambiguity (Double Meaning)
Ex. synthetic buffalo hides
synthetic (buffalo hides)
(synthetic buffalo) hides
Grammatical Relations and how they are understood
Ex. Mary hired Bill.
Bill hired Mary.
Bill was hired by Mary.
Sentence Structure
Constituent Structure (every sentence has one or
more)
Syntactic Categories
A family of expressions that can substitute for one
another without loss of grammaticality
Ex. The child found the puppy.
Your neighbor found the puppy.
This yellow cat found the puppy.
He found the puppy.
Syntactic Categories
Noun Phrase (NP) Auxiliary Verb (Aux)
subject or object in the sentence –have, be, will, must, etc.

Verb Phrase (VP)


– verb by NP or PP

Sentence (S) Preposition (P)


Determiner (Det) Prepositional Phrase (PP)
Adjective (Adj) Adverb (Adv)
Noun (N) Pronoun (Pro)
Verb (V)
Phrase Structure Trees
A tree diagram with syntactic category information
provided (syntactic labels)
Constituent structure tree
Re-Visiting the Sentence Structure
Phrase Structure Tree
Phrase Structure Tree
More Phrase Structure Tree
The Infinitude of Language
There is no longest sentence in any language
Speakers can lengthen any sentence by various
means
Adding adjectives, clauses, etc.
The Infinitude of Language
But as the structures grow longer
They become more increasingly difficult to
produce and understand.
-due to short term memory limitations
Phrase Structure Rule
S NP VP
NP (Det) (Adj) N (PP)
NP that S
NP Pro
VP V (NP) (PP) (Adv)
PP P NP
Phrase Structure Rule
1. S NP VP
The boy found the ball.
2. NP (Det) (Adj) N (PP)
The beautiful girl on the piano.
3. NP that S
Phrase Structure Rule
Phrase Structure Rule
4. NP Pro
I, You, We.
5. VP V (NP) (PP) (Adv)
blew the boat into the water suddenly.
6. PP P NP
of the people
for the people
by the people
URDU CLAUSE STRUCTURE EXAMPLE
Butt (n.d, p.4)

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