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Syntax

Here are the categories for each word in the given sentences: 1. The plate suddenly broke. Det - The N - plate Adv - suddenly V - broke 2. A student ran towards the end of the lane. Det - A N - student V - ran Prep - towards Det - the N - end Prep - of Det - the N - lane 3. The fruits never become too ripe. Det - The N - fruits Adv - never V - become Adv - too A - ripe 4. Robert will play the guitar and the drums in the band. N - Robert Aux - will V -

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Ratih Ayu Wulandari
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45 views

Syntax

Here are the categories for each word in the given sentences: 1. The plate suddenly broke. Det - The N - plate Adv - suddenly V - broke 2. A student ran towards the end of the lane. Det - A N - student V - ran Prep - towards Det - the N - end Prep - of Det - the N - lane 3. The fruits never become too ripe. Det - The N - fruits Adv - never V - become Adv - too A - ripe 4. Robert will play the guitar and the drums in the band. N - Robert Aux - will V -

Uploaded by

Ratih Ayu Wulandari
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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SYNTAX

What is Syntax?
It is a branch of linguistics that studies the rules that
govern the formation of sentences
What the Syntax Rules Do
 The rules of syntax combine words into phrases
and phrases into sentences
 They specify the correct word order for a
language. For example, English is a Subject-
Verb-Object (SVO) language:
The students are having the middle test.
What the Syntax Rules Do
 They also describe the relationship between the
meaning of a group of words and the
arrangement of the words, as in:
I mean what I say vs. I say what I
mean
What the Syntax Rules Do
 They also describe the relationship between the
meaning of a group of words and the
arrangement of the words, as in:
I mean what I say vs. I say what I
mean
What the Syntax Rules Do
 The rules of syntax also specify the
grammatical relations of a sentence, such as the
subject and the direct object as in:
Your dog chased my cat vs.
My cat chased your dog
What the Syntax Rules Do
 Syntax rules also tell us how words form groups and are
hierarchically ordered in a sentence. For example:
“The captain ordered the old men and women off the
ship”
This sentence has two possible meanings:
1. The captain ordered the old men and the old women off
the ship.
2. The captain ordered the old men and the women of any
age off the ship
What the Syntax Rules Do
 The meanings depend on how the words in the sentence
are grouped (specifically, to which words is the adjective
‘old’ applied?):
1. The captain ordered the [old [men and women]] off the
ship.
2. The captain ordered the [old men] and [women] off the
ship
Categories
They refer to a group of linguistic items
which fulfill the same or similar functions
in a particular language such as a sentence,
a noun phrase or a verb.
Word-level Categories
 Words can be grouped together into a relatively
small number of classes, called syntactic
categories, which can generally substitute for
one another without loss of grammaticality.
 Word-level categories are divided into: lexical
words (open class words) and functional words
(closed class words)
Lexical words
 They are called open (lexical) because
languages can freely add new words to
the set. e.g.:
Noun, Verb, Adjective, and Adverb
Functional words
 They are called functional words
because they carry little meaning (have
no synonyms) and typically help another
word. e.g.:
Determiner, Degree words, Qualifier,
Auxiliary, Conjunction, Pronoun,
Preposition
Phrase categories and
their structures
 Syntactic units that are built around a certain word
category are called phrases, the category of which is
determined by the word category around which the
phrase is built.
 E.g. if the word around which the phrase is built is a
noun, then the phrase is a noun phrase. e.g. the car,
a clever student
Phrasal Categories
The most commonly recognized categories:
1. NP : Noun Phrase
The car, a clever student
2. VP : Verb Phrase
Study hard, read the book
3. PP : Prepositional Phrase
In the class, around the house
4. AP : Adjective Phrase
very clever, really good
The common symbols in
syntactic analysis
S Sentence Pro Pronoun
N Noun Adv Adverb
V Verb Prep Preposition
Art Article PP Preposition
NP Noun phrase phrase
VP Verb phrase Det Determiner
Adj. Adjective PN Proper noun
Phrase Structure Rules
1. NP: (Det) N (PP)
2. VP: (Qual) V (NP)
3. AP: (Deg) A (PP)
4. PP: (Deg) P (NP)
The Main Structure Rules
1. S : NP (Aux) VP
2. NP : (Det) (AP) N (PP)
3. VP : V (NP) (PP) (Adv)
4. PP : P NP
5. AP : A (PP)
The Main Structure Rules
1. S : NP (Aux) VP
2. NP : (Det) (AP) N (PP)
3. VP : V (NP) (PP) (Adv)
4. PP : P NP
5. AP : A (PP)
More phrase structure rules
 Coordinate structure:
A coordinate structure results when two
constituents of the same category are joined
with a conjunction, such as and, or. e.g: The
cat and the dog:
NP : NP (Conj) NP
Phrase Structure Trees
Phrase structure (PS) trees show the internal structure of a
sentence along with syntactic category information.
Building Phrase Structure Trees
Indicate the category of each word
in the following sentences:
1. The plate suddenly broke.
2. A student ran towards the end of the lane.
3. The fruits never become too ripe.
4. Robert will play the guitar and the drums in the band.

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