Scribd
Upload
10 views

Lecture On Syntax 2

Uploaded by

stardustdigitals59
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
10 views

Lecture On Syntax 2

Uploaded by

stardustdigitals59
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 41

• In the previous chapters, we have

discussed how the grammar of a language


represents the speaker’s linguistic
knowledge, including knowledge of
phonetics (the sounds of language),
phonology (the sound patterns of
language), and morphology (the structure
of words).
• How do we combine words to make
sentences? Syntax uses trees (just as in
morphology) but the trees are built on
words instead of morphemes.
• Words are the fundamental units of
sentences.
• The laws of combination for words are the
syntactic rules.
•
Morphology Review
• Recall that words have internal structure
(they are comprised of morphemes).
• Meaning: un ( able (believe)

• Recall also that each affix is added according


to a morphological rule.
• Remember that the rules are specification of
part of a tree.
Meaning: The property of
being Adjective
SYNTAX
• Knowing a language also means being able to put
words together to form sentences to express our
thoughts.
• That part of our linguistic knowledge which
concerns the structure of sentences is called
SYNTAX.

• The dentist hurt my teeth.


• My teeth hurt the dentist.
• My the hurt teeth dentist.
• Although a sentence is a string of morphemes,
every string of morphemes is not a sentence.
• There are rules in one’s grammar that
determine how morphemes and words must
be combined to express a particular meaning.
• These are the SYNTACTIC RULES of the
language that determine the correct order of
words in a sentence.
• Those that conform to the syntactic rules are
called the sentences or grammatical sentences
of the language.
• Those that do not conform to the syntactic
rules are called ungrammatical.
•
• Sentences conform to specific patterns and
these patterns are dictated by the syntactic
rules of the language.
• SENTENCE STRUCTURE

• Sentences are broken down into sub-parts (PHRASES) in the


same way.
• Syntactic rules determine the correct order of words in a
sentence.
• But sentences are more than merely words placed one
after another like beads on a string.
• The words of a sentence can be divided into two or more
groups, and within each group the words can be divided
into subgroups, and so on, until only single words remain.
• Such a diagram is called a CONSTITUENT
STRUCTURE TREE.
• The “tree” is upside down with the “root” at
the top and the “leaves” at the bottom.
• At each point where the tree “branches” there
is a group of words that form a part or
STRUCTURAL CONSTITUENT of the sentence.
• At the bottom of the tree are the individual
words or morphemes.
• In addition to revealing the linear order of the
words and other structural parts of the sentence,
a constituent structure tree has HIERARCHICAL
STRUCTURE.
• This means that the groups & subgroups of words
comprising the structural constituents are shown
by the level on which they appear in the tree.
SYNTACTIC CATEGORY

1. Noun Phrase (NP) – can function as “subject”


or “object” in a sentence, and only noun phrase
may do so.
Ex. the child, the puppy
2. Verb Phrase (VP) – always contain a verb,
which may be followed by other constituents,
such as noun phrase.
Ex. found the puppy

3. Sentence (S)
Ex. The child found the puppy.
4. Prepositional Phrase (PP)
Ex. in the cupboard, by the brook

5. Adjective Phrase (AP)


Ex. smart boy, beautiful lady

6. Noun (N)
Ex. child, puppy
7. Verb (V)
Ex. find, sleep

8. Adjective (Adj.)
Ex. red, smart, beautiful
9. Pronoun (Pro)
Ex. it, she, he

10. Preposition
Ex. at, in, to, with

11. Article (Art)


Ex. the, an, a
• Three aspects of our syntactic knowledge of
sentence structure are revealed in this kind of
constituent structure tree:

1. linear order of words


2. grouping of words into structural constituents
3. syntactic category of each structural
constituent
Sb (Subject)
1. Structure of Predication P (Predicate)

• predicate
• means the relationship between the subject and
predicate
• this is often described as “actor/action” and usually
occurs as a noun phrase and a finite verb phrase.
H (Head)
2. Structure of Modification.
M(Modifier)
• a. the relationship in which determiners and
adjectives modify the noun
•
• b. it is also represented in the mode/sentence
by the expression of place (prepositional
phrase)
c. the expression of time which modifies the
whole sentence

Ex. tomorrow last year

Modification answers the questions when,


where, why and how
V(Verb)
3. Structure of Complementation C(Complement)

the verb takes an object – a noun phrase that follows it is an


example of structure of complementation.
• Complementation answers the questions
what or who
Co(Coordinate)
4. Structure of Coordination

I(Independent Unit)
• two or more items of the same grammatical
type are joined by coordinating conjunctions.

• coordinating conjunctions:
Ex. and, but, or, nor, yet
• Constituent refers to any word or group of
words that appears at the bottom of one of
the lines in diagram.

• Construction refers to the relationship


between constituent.

You might also like