Introduction to English

Syntax

2nd semester 2011

By Fitri
 Syntax in Linguistic Tree

Linguistics

Sounds of
language Grammar Meanin
g

Phonetics Phonolog Morpholog Syntax Semantic

y Pragmatic
y s s
 What is syntax?

Syntax is a branch of
linguistics that studies the
rules that govern the
formation of sentences.
 Analyzing

1. a. The boy found the ball.

b. The boy found quickly.
c. The boy found in the house.
d. The boy found the ball in the
house.

2. a. Sylvia slept the baby

b. Sylvia slept soundly
 Grammaticality
judgments
 It’s determined by rules that are
shared by the speakers of
language.
 Words must conform to specific
patterns determined by syntactic
rules of the language.
 Categories

Category refers 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:
1. lexical words (open class words)
2. Functional words (closed class
words)
 Lexical words

 It is called “open” (lexical) because

languages can freely add new
words to the set.
e.g.
Noun, Verb, Adjective,
and Adverb
 Functional words

It’s 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
 Example of Syntactic
Categories
Lexical Examples:
categories:  moisture, policy
 Noun (N)  melt, remain
 Verb (V)  good, intelligent
 Adjective (A)  slowly, now
 Adverb (Adv)
Functional Examples:
categories:  the, this
 Determiner (Det)  very, more
 Degree word  always, perhaps
(Deg)  will, can
 Qualifier (Qual)
 and, or
 Auxiliary (Aux)
 Conjunction

(Con)
 Indicate the category of each
word in the following
sentences.
a. The glass suddenly broke.
Det / N / Adv / V

b. A jogger ran towards the end of the

lane.
Det / N / V / P / Det / N / P / Det / N

c. The peaches never appear quite ripe.

Det / N / Qual / V / Deg / Adj

d. Gillian will play the trumpet and the

drums
N / Auxin
/ Vthe
/ Det orchestra.
/ N / Conj / Det / N / P / Det / N
 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:
 NP : Noun Phrase
The car, a clever student
 VP : Verb Phrase
study hard, play the guitar
 PP : Prepositional Phrase
in the class, above the earth
 AP : Adjective Phrase
 Other examples

 [NP the pretty girl]

 [VP often dream]
 [AP very pessimistic]
 [PP mainly about]
 Phrase Structure Rules(I)

The phrase structure rule for NP, VP,

AP and PP (example):
 NP(Det) N (PP) …
 VP(Qual) V (NP) …
 AP(Deg) A (PP) …
 PP(Deg) P (NP) …
 Symbols

The list of common symbols in

syntactic analysis:
S Sentence Pro Pronoun
N Noun Adv Adverb
V Verb Prep Preposition
Art Article PP Prep phrase
NP Noun phrase Det Determiner
VP Verb phrase PN Proper noun
Adj adjective
 Phrase structure rules (II)
 NP  (Det) N (PP)
 PP  P NP

The bus in the yard

The bus (NP)
NP

Det N
Det N PP

The bus P NP

Det N

The bus in the

yard
 Phrase structure rules
 VP  V (NP) (PP)
(III)

took the money from the

took the money
bank
(VP)
(VP)
V NP
V NP PP

det N Det N P NP

took the money

Det N

took the money from the bank

 Draw the tree diagram!

1. repaired the telephone

2. the success of the program
3. a film about pollution
4. move towards the window
5. cast a spell on the broomstick
 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)
 e.g. The old tree swayed in the
wind
S

NP Aux VP

Det Adj N V PP

P NP

Det N

The old tree past swayed in the

wind
 The children put the toy in the
box
S

NP VP

Det N

V NP PP

Det N P NP

Det
N

The children put the toy in

 Structural ambiguity (I)

Synthetic buffalo hides (NP) Synthetic buffalo hides (NP)

Synthetic buffalo hides Synthetic buffalo hides

Buffalo hides that are synthetic. Hides of synthetic buffalo.

Ambiguities often lead to humorous results:
 For sale: an antique desk suitable
for lady with thick legs and large
drawers.
 what does “thick legs and large
drawers” refer to?
The desk or the lady?
 Structural ambiguity(II)
The boy saw the man with the
telescope
S

NP Aux VP

Det N V NP PP

Det N P NP

Det N

The boy past saw the man with the telescope

 Structural ambiguity (III)
The boy saw the man with the
telescope
S

NP Aux VP

Det N V NP

Det N PP

P NP

Det N
The boy past saw the man with the telescope
Draw two phrase structure trees representing the
two meanings of the sentence:

The magician touched the child with the

wand.

Be sure you indicate which meaning goes with which

tree.
 Deep structure

 The basic structure of sentences

which specified by phrase structure
rules.
e.g. NP + V + NP
 Same deep structure can be the
source of many other surface
structures.
For example:
 The boy is sleeping Is the
boy sleeping?
S

NP Aux VP

Det N V

The boy is Sleeping

 S

Aux NP VP

Det N V

Is the boy --- sleeping

Example of same deep structure:
Charlie broke the window
 It was Charlie who broke the

window
 Was the window broken by

Charlie?
 Surface structure

 The variant of basic sentence

structures.
 The structures that result from the
application of transformational
rules.
Other sentence types that are
transformationally related are:
Passive sentences
 ‘there’ sentences
A man was on the roof there
was a man on the roof

 PP preposing
The astronomer saw a meteor with his
telescope with his telescope the
astronomer saw a meteor
 Example of deep &
surface Structures
The boy will leave Will the boy leave?
S S

NP Aux VP Aux NP VP

Det N V Det N V

The boy will leave Will the boy leave

The deep structure The surface structure
Draw the deep & surface structure of
the following sentences:
1. Will the boss hire Hillary?
2. Is that player leaving the team?
3. Who should the director call?
4. What is Joanne eating?
 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 or.
e.g
 NP

NP Conj NP

Det N Det N

The cat and the dog

 Embedded sentence
It includes another sentence within
itself.
e.g.
the teacher believes the student
knows the answer
 Complementizers
It introduces a complement phrase
 S

NP Aux VP

Det N present V S

The teacher believe the student

knows the answer
 Example of complementizer

NP Aux VP

Det N present V CP

C S

The teacher believes that the

student knows the
answer
 The Wh-movement
S

NP Aux VP
Det N V NP

Det N

The man should repair which car

 References

 Yule, J. (2010). The study of language: 4th

edition. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press
 Fromkin, V., Rodman, R., Hyams, N.,
Collins, P. & Amberber, M. (2005). An
introduction to language: 5th edition.
Merlbourne: Nelson Thomson Learning
Pty
 Steinberg, D.D. (1993). An introduction
to psycholinguistics. New York: Longman