SYNTAX

What is syntax?

The study that describes the way words fit together to form sentences/utterances.
• I shot the sheriff. Is syntactically well-formed sentence in English (grammatical).
• * The shot sheriff I Is syntactically ill-formed sentence in English (ungrammatical).
 1. The girl likes the apple.
2. The apple likes the girl.
Let’s decide on the
3. *The girl likes the this
grammaticality of
4. *The buys likes the apple
the following
sentences:
The question is: Why 1 & 2 are grammatical,
whereas 2 & 3 are ungrammatical?
 Word Categories
a. Nouns: Are often described as the ‘name’ of ‘something’.

S the + Noun + likes + the + Noun

girl apple
apple girl
girl *this
*buys apple
 Word Categories
b. Determiners: Are a small group of words which act to limit or determine to some extent the possible range of things which
the noun can refer to.
1. Basic determiners: a, an, the
2. Demonstratives: this, that, these, those
3. Quantifiers: some, any, each, every, no, few, etc.
4. Possessives: my, your, her, his, its, our, your (plural), their
5. Wh-Determiners: whose, what, which

S > Det + Noun + likes + Det + Noun

The + girl + likes + the + apple.
The + *this + likes + the + apple.
 Word Categories

c. Verbs are words which describe an action or a state.

S > Det + Noun + Verb + Det + Noun
S > The + girl + likes + the + apple
S > The + *buys + likes + apple
The basic structure of English sentences:

S > Det + Noun + Verb + Det + Noun

 Tree Diagrams
S

Det Noun Verb Det Noun

But this is not the correct way of building a tree diagram. Why not?
A sentence in English should be divided into
phrases rather than single words

A dog chased that girl.

1. A+dog are closer together than chased; that+girl are also closer together than A dog
& chased.
2. A+dog is phrase 1
3. Chased is phrase 2
4. That girl is phrase 3
A possible tree diagram:
S

Phrase 1 Phrase 2 Phrase 3

◦ But this is also not a correct tree diagram. Why?

Some phrases are closer to each
 A dog chased that girl.

1. A dog is closer together than chased that girl.

S

Phrase 1 Phrase 2
A dog (Noun Phrase NP) chased that girl (Verb Phrase VP)

Det Noun Verb Phrase 3

that girl (Noun phrase)
Det Noun

A dog chased that girl

 Exercise 1: Draw tree diagrams for the
following sentences

1. The hen ate the corn.

2. Joe kicked James.
3. He hates him.
The hen ate the corn.
S

NP VP

Det N V NP

Det N

The hen ate the corn

Joe kicked James.
S

NP VP

N V NP

Joe kicked James

 Words have form:
noun, pronoun, verb, determiner,
verb/noun phrase.
Words have function:
Subject, predicate, object (direct object,
Form & indirect object).

Function In a tree diagram, the constituents of a

sentence reflect form but not function.
The dog chased the girl.
S > Subject + predicate + direct
object
More on Categories
 Adverbs & adverb phrases.
 English has three types of adverbs:
1. Circumstance adverb
e.g: Ken snores loudly.
2. Degree adverb
e.g: Ken snores very loudly.
3. Sentence adverb
e.g: Unfortunately, the cat killed the mouse.
Ken snores loudly.
S

NP VP

N V AdvP

Adv [circ]
Ken snores loudly
Ken snores very loudly
S

NP VP

N v AdvP

Adv [deg] Adv [cir]

Ken snores very loudly

Unfortunately, the cat killed the mouse.
S

AdvP NP VP

Adv (Sent) Det N V NP

Det N

Unfortunately the cat killed the mouse

 The cat, unfortunately killed the mouse.
S

NP AdvP VP

Det N Adv [sentence] V NP

Det N

The cat unfortunately killed the mouse

 The cat killed the mouse unfortunately

Try to draw a tree diagram for this one!

 More on categories

Prepositions (P) & prepositional phrases (PP): They belong to a small group or class of
words which express relations of place, direction, time or possession (of, at, to, from, till,
with, for, beside, against, up, down, by, etc. They can appear alone, or in conjunction with a
noun phrase as in:
1. Sally looked up.
2. Sally looked up the chimney.
 Sally looked up.
S

NP VP

N V PP

Sally looked up
Sally looked up the chimney.
◦ S

NP VP

N V PP

P NP

Det N

Sally Looked up the chimney

 More on categories

Adjectives (A) & adjective phrases (AP): are describing words, define attributes or
characteristics:

1. The fat dog chased the thin girl.

2. The dog is fat.
Let’s try to draw diagrams for both sentences!
The fat dog chased the thin girl.
S

NP VP

Det NP V NP

Adj N Det NP

Adj N

The fat dog chased the thin girl

 The dog is fat.
S

NP VP

Det N V Adj P

Adj

The dog is fat

 The verb phrase (Transitive)
1. Kate hugged the baby.

NP VP

N
V [Trans] NP

Det N
Kate hugged The baby
Subject Predicate direct Object
 Verb types > Intransitive verb
 Ken snores.
S

NP VP

N V[Intrans]

Ken snores
Subject Predicate
◦ Ken snores loudly.
S

NP VP

N V[Intrans} AdvP

Adv[circum]

Ken snores loudly

Subject Predicate Adverbial
 Verb types> Ditransitive verbs
◦ Ray told the children a story.
S

NP VP

N V[ditrans] NP NP

Det N Det N

Ray told the children a story

Subject Predicate indirect Object direct Object
◦ Ray told a story to the children.

NP VP

N V[ditrans] NP PP

Det N p NP

Det N
Ray told a story to the children
Verb Types> Intensive verbs/prepositional verbs
◦ Sally became a doctor.
◦ The children glanced at the pictures.
S

NP VP

N V[Intens] NP

Det N

Sally became a doctor

Subject Predicate Subject compliment (sC)
◦ The children glanced at the pictures.
S

NP VP

Det N V[prep] PP

P NP
Det N
The children glanced at the pictures
subject predicate Prepositional object (pO)
 Verb types/Complex transitive
◦ The voters elected Mary a president.
◦ Kate thought John a fool.
 The voters elected Mary a president.
S

NP VP

Det N V[complex Trans] NP NP

N Det N

The voters elected Mary a president

Subject Predicate dO Object Complement (oC)

 Verb Types/Imperative
◦ Close the door!
S

VP NP

V[trans] Det N

Close the door

predicate Direct object (dO)
 Practice
◦ 1. The lady sang the song beautifully.
◦ 2. Sue gave the dog a bone.
◦ 3.Shut the door quietly.
The lady sang the song beautifully.
S

NP VP

Det N V[Trans] NP

Det N AdvP
Adv[circum]

The lady sang the song beautifully

Subject (S) Predicate (P) direct object (dO) Adverbial
Sue gave the dog a bone.
◦ S

NP VP

N V[Ditrans} NP NP

Det N Det N

Sue gave the dog a bone

Subject (S) Predicate (P) indirect object (iO) direct object (dO)
Shut the door quietly.
S

VP NP

V[Trans] Det N AdvP

Adv[circum]

Shut the door quietly

Predicate (P) direct object(dO) Adverbial

◦
 More practice
1. A. The baby slept. B. The baby slept soundly. C. The baby slept quite soundly.
D. The baby slept quite soundly in the pram.

2. A. Helen played the piano on the stage. B. The children played in the garden.

3. A. Sally showed the children the pictures. B. Sally gave the pictures to the children.
C. The porter called George a taxi. D. The porter called George an idiot.

4. The tall man is a professor.

The baby slept quite soundly in the pram.

NP VP

Det N V[Intrans} Advp PP

Adv[deg] Adv[Circum] P NP
Det N

The baby slept quite soundly in the pram

Subject (S) Predicate (P) Adverbial Adverbial [pO]
The children played in the garden.
S

NP VP

Det N V [Intrans] PP

P NP

Det N

The children played in the garden

Subject (S) Prerdicate (P) Adverbial
Sally showed the children the pictures.
S

NP VP

N V [Ditrans] NP NP

Det N Det N

Sally showed the children the pictures

Subject (S) Predicate (P) indirect object (iO) direct object (dO)
Subordination & Coordination
◦ The cat that loves dogs is mad.
◦ The cat that is mad loves dogs.
◦ I like tea but Sue likes coffee.
◦ Old women and men love cakes.
 What is Subordination?

◦ Subordination is a process by which we link a clause that is inferior in status to another clause that is superior in
linguistic status.
◦ The way we achieve this linkage is through the use of Subordinators.
◦ Subordinators belong to the Part of Speech we refer to as Conjunction. You must have heard about
Subordinating Conjunctions, , these are also called subordinators.

◦ Let us demonstrate the concept of subordination by the examples in the next slide
The two segments of each of the five sentences below are examples of independent clauses. They have
equal status; but once we introduce a subordinator, one of the two segments of each sentence becomes a
subordinate clause. The introduction of the subordinators highlighted above has made the clauses the
introduce dependent clauses. Typically, complex sentences contain a subordinate clause and the main
clause while compound-complex sentences contain two main clauses and, at least, a subordinate clause.

 I dislike quinine/it is very bitter.  I dislike quinine because it is very bitter.

 He ate his breakfast/he left for work.  He ate his breakfast before he left for work.

 She will not attend to you/you pay your fees.  She will not attend to you until you pay your
fees.
 He failed the course/he is brilliant.
 He failed the course although he is brilliant.
 I was coming/I saw him.
 I was coming when I saw him.
What is Coordination?

◦ Coordination is a process by which we link two grammatical units that are equal in status together by means of a
coordinator. For example:

 The children ate and went to bed.

◦ The sentence above contains two main clauses but ‘and’ is not part of either of the clauses.
Indicators/Markers of Subordination

◦ There are basically three coordinators in English which we also refer to as coordinating conjunctions.
◦ And

◦ But

◦ Or
 And
 He could not pay his tuition and pay his rent simultaneously.

 They caught the thief and handed him over to the police.

 I have one lamp by which my feet are guided; and that is the lamp of experience.

 Just add water and stir continuously.

 Their work was excellent and won several awards.

 But
 We tried to catch up with them but we could not.

 The politician won the election but the dictator nullified it.

 I wish to travel by air but I could not afford the cost.

 He is poor but he is happy.

 Katie went to bed early but she did not sleep until midnight.
 Or
 Give Me Liberty, or Give Me Death. (Patrick Henry)

 Do you want a milkshake or you want ice cream?

 Either you typed the wrong name, or something is wrong with the equipment.

 You’d better leave or you’ll be late.

 Should we play tennis or we should go skydiving?

Sentence Type
◦ When you observe the structure of the sentences above, they are typically compound sentences because
they contain two main clauses but the coordinators are not part of either clause.

◦ When there are three main clauses joined by coordinators in a sentence, we have an instance of a
multiple sentence.

◦ And if a subordinate clause is added, then the sentence becomes a Multiple-complex sentence.
 Task [10 points]

◦ Form a group of 4 and write about the different types of subordination & coordination. Then draw
a tree diagram for each type. Present all the information in a PP format.