SYNTAX

COMPILED BY MS K MAKUWA
 • Demonstrate an understanding of the
principles of syntax in specific languages
• Distinguish between words, phrases and
sentences as applicable to different
languages
• Apply the concept of a paragraph as a
unit of meaning in relation to the whole
text
• Analyse texts/ sentences in terms of the
sequence, chronology, unity of meaning
and syntactic elements

OUTCOMES • Describe the grammatical categories

found in given sentences, paragraphs and
texts
• Apply the principles of Transformational
Generative Grammar (TGG) to analyse
sentences into their constituent parts and
draw the tree diagrams
• Identify word categories in given phrases,
clauses and sentences
• Describe the grammatical elements in
given sentences, paragraphs and texts
• Show an appreciation of the art of writing
as an alternative speech act
WHAT IS
SYNTAX?
Definition
• The word ‘syntax’ comes from the Greek word syntaxis, which means ‘arrangement’. It implies to how
we arrange words and phrases to form sound and structured sentences to make meaning in a
language.

The Merriam Webster dictionary defines syntax as:

“a way in which linguistic elements (such as words) are put together to form constituents (such as
phrases or clauses)”

• Another definition to consider is that syntax is a grammatical structure of words and phrases to create

coherent sentences or that it is a format in which we arrange words and phrases to form a sentence.
PHRASE
S
Phrases

• A phrase is defined as a group or a collection of words that have

a relation in meaning but no subject doing an action (verb).

• Preda has defined it as a sequence of grammatically related

words lacking a subject and a predicate (2014:25).

• The words in a phrase act together so that the phrase itself

functions as a single part of speech.
Reasons to learn about phrases

• First - to see if you understand how they work to avoid

mistaking them for sentences.

• Second - to avoid misplacing them or leaving them dangling in

sentences.

• Third - to be able to use them effectively in combining

sentences.
Types of phrases
• Noun Phrase
• Prepositional Phrase
• Adjective Phrase
• Adverb Phrase
• Verb Phrase
• Gerund Phrase
• Infinitive Phrase
• Participial Phrase
Features of Phrases

• Consists of several words but at times can be one word.

• Function as meaningful units and can be replaced by one word.

• The head is the important as it determines the category of the

word.
Clause
• A clause is a group of words containing a
subject and predicate (verb). Can also
be defined as a meaningful combination
of words, as it alone, can express a

s
complete thought.
Types of clauses
We have two types of clauses: main clause and subordinate clause.

Main clause (Independent clause) is a sentence that can stand on its own,
whereas a Subordinate clause (Dependent clause) is a dependant clause that
functions as a constituent of the main clause. Note that every sentence should
always have at least one main clause.

Look at the following examples:

I saw a man who was crying.

Main clause Subordinate clause

Three types of subordinate clauses
• Noun clause – usually starts with words such as ‘that, what, whatever, who, whom,
whoever, whomever’. They function like a noun and can be a subject or object.

• Adjective clause – it modifies the noun or pronoun in a sentence. An adjective

clause mostly starts with a relative pronoun such as ‘that, who, whom, whose,
which or whose’.

• Adverb clause – this clause modifies the verb, adjective-clause or another adverb
clause in a sentence. It adds information to a verb of the main clause in terms of time,
frequency (how often), condition, cause and effect; and intensity (extent).
 • Parts of speech is a category to
which a word is assigned in
accordance with its syntactic
functions.

Parts of • It is also called grammatical

categories or syntactic categories.

Speech • In English, the main parts of

speech are noun, pronoun,
adjective, determiner, verb,
adverb, preposition,
conjunction, and interjection.
 • A conjunction is the glue that
holds words, phrases and
clauses (both dependent and
independent) together. There

Conjunction are three different kinds of

s
conjunctions: coordinating,
subordinating, and
correlative - each serving its
own, distinct purpose, but all
working to bring words
together.
Types of conjunctions
• Coordinating conjunctions join words, phrases, and independent clauses.

• Subordinating conjunction always introduces a dependent clause, tying it to an

independent clause. Unlike coordinating conjunctions, subordinate conjunctions can often

come first in a sentence. This is because of the nature of the relationship between the
dependent and the independent clause.

• Correlative conjunctions are tag-team conjunctions. They come in pairs, and you must use

both in different places in a sentence to make them work. These conjunctions work together
(co-) and relate one sentence to another. Correlative conjunctions connect two equal
grammatical terms.
 • A sentence is a set of words that is
complete, typically containing a subject
and predicate, conveying a statement,
question, exclamation, or command, and
consisting of a main clause and

Sentence sometimes one or more subordinate

clauses.

• The sentence is generally defined as a

word or a group of words that expresses a
thorough idea by giving a statement/order,
or asking a question, or exclaiming.
Characteristics of a sentence

• First, in written form, a sentence begins with a capital letter and

ends with a period (i.e., a full stop) [.], a note of interrogation (i.e., a
question mark) [?], or a note of exclamation (i.e., an exclamation
mark) [!].

• Second, it must express a complete thought, not fragmented.

• Third, it must contain at least one subject (hidden/visible) and one

verb comprising an independent clause.
Categories of sentences

• There are structural sentences and functional sentences.

• Structural sentences are those that give us a certain format/

structure a sentence will have according to how it is categorized

• Functional sentences refer to a speaker's purpose in uttering

a specific sentence, phrase, or clause.
Structural sentences
• Simple Sentences contains a subject and a verb. A simple sentence has only one clause, which must

be an independent clause.

• Compound sentence has two independent clauses which can stand alone because it contains a

subject and a verb and expresses a complete thought (2 simple sentences), joined by a conjunction.

• Complex sentence is an independent clause joined by one or more dependent clauses (either lacks a

subject or a verb and does not express a complete thought). A complex sentence always has a

subordinator or relative pronouns.

• Compound-complex sentence (or complex–compound sentence) is a mixture of the features of

compound and complex sentences in one sentence – containing at least two independent clauses and

at least one dependent clause.

Functional sentences
• Declarative sentence (assertive sentence) simply expresses an opinion/feeling, or makes
a statement, or describes things. This type of sentence ends with a period (i.e., a full-stop).

• Imperative sentence is for making a request or to give a command. Usually ends with a
period (full stop), but under certain circumstances, it can end with a note of exclamation
mark.

• Interrogative sentence asks a question and must end with a note of interrogation (question
mark)

• Exclamatory sentence expresses overflow of emotions which can be of happiness,

wonder, sorrow, anger, etc.
 • Defined as a set of marks that regulates and clarifies the
meanings of different texts.

• Originated from the Medieval Latin word “pūnctuātiōn,” which

means markings or signs.

• The purpose of punctuation is to clarify the meanings of texts by

linking or separating words, phrases, or clauses.

• The main function of a punctuation is that it serves as a pause

within a sentence, which is often necessary in order to emphasize

Punctuation certain phrases or words in order to help readers and listeners

understand better what the writer or speaker is trying to convey.

• Thus, the basic function of punctuation is to place stress on

certain sections of a sentence.

• Punctuation marks are also used to divide text into words and
phrases when necessary, in order to better clarify the meaning of
those words or phrases.

• On the contrary, using punctuation incorrectly can convey an

entirely different meaning of a sentence from the one that was
originally intended.
Types of punctuations

Full stop Dash

Quotation marks Exclamation mark

Apostrophe Parentheses

Question marks Brackets

Comma Ellipses

Hyphen Slash

Semi-colon Colon
 • A paragraph is a unit of writing in a larger body of
work.

• Expresses a particular topic or theme.

• It is a component of fictional prose and non-fiction

writings.

paragraph
• When writing essays, research papers, books, etc.,
new paragraphs are indented to show their
beginnings.

s • Each new paragraph begins with a new indentation.

• The purpose of a paragraph is to express a

speaker’s thoughts on a particular point in a clear
way that is unique and specific to that paragraph. In
other words, paragraphs shouldn’t be mixing
thoughts or ideas.

• When a new idea is introduced, generally, a writer

will introduce a new paragraph.
 • Factual texts inform,
instruct or persuade by
giving facts and
information.

Texts • Literary texts entertain or

elicit an emotional
response by using
language to create mental
images.
Factual texts
Factual texts - persuasive
Literal texts
 • Nichols (1984: 97) states that theories of grammar, grammatical
analyses, and grammatical statements may be divided into three
types: structural, formal, and functional.

• Structural grammar describes grammatical structures such as

phonemes, morphemes, syntactic relations, semantics, interclause

Theories
relations, constituents, dependencies, sentences, and occasionally,
as with tagmemics and glossematics, texts and discourses.

• Formal grammar analyses the same range of phenomena but does

of
so by constructing a formal model of language. The model itself is
the object of description, and the language phenomena only the
means of description, the material on which arguments are based.

grammar
• Functional grammar broadens its purview beyond these structural
phenomena, and hence its theoretical outlook is distinctive. It
analyses grammatical structure, as do formal and structural
grammar; but it also analyses the entire communicative situation:
the purpose of the speech event, its participants and its discourse
context.

• But for this unit we are going to focus on Structuralism,

Functionalism and the Transformational (Generative) Grammar.
 • Transformational grammar also known as
transformational-generative grammar or T-G or
TGG is a theory of grammar that accounts for
the constructions of a language by linguistic
transformations and phrase structures. It is also
a broad approach to syntax and was one of

Transformational Noam Chomsky’s early proposals in the 1960s.

Grammar • Its main aim is to describe a language with the

help of transformational rules. TG helps with the
understanding the grouping of words in a
particular context. Thus, can help with generate
or produce sentence structures and not just
describe them. The advantage of this process is
that it gives rise to language competence to the
user of language.
Deep and Surface Structure
• Deep structure: determines the abstract (semantic) interpretation. The phrase
structure tree represents the deep structure, where the relations between words
and phrases in a sentence using a hierarchical tree diagram. This structure
creates room for native speaker of a language to know what the sentence means.
Deep structure sentences that have alternative interpretations and different
surface forms but have the same underlying meaning.

• Surface structure: is the aspect of description that determines the phonetic form
of sentences. The surface structure is produced structure.
Structural Ambiguity

• Structural ambiguity refers to two (or more) meanings of a

clause rather than to different meanings of a particular lexical
item within a sentence. Meaning the sentence can be
interpreted in more than one way because of the way the
sentence is put together, rather than because it includes one or
more words with multiple meanings.
Syntactic Analysis
Defined as:

 A way of determining the relevant components of a sentence

 A way of describing these parts grammatically.

 The component parts of a sentence, which are called constituents.

• Syntactic analysis involves two related tasks: (a) breaking down the
sentence into its constituents (b) labelling each constituent, stating what
type (form) of constituent it is, and what grammatical function it has.
Four levels of analysing sentences
• Every sentence can be analysed at four distinct levels:

1. the sentence− level,

2. the clause−level,

3. the phrase−level, and

4. the word−level.

• This is called the rank scale focusing on the

SENTENCE↔CLAUSE↔PHRASE↔WORD↔MORPHEME
 A tree diagram provides a visual
presentation of the categorical constituent
structure of the sentence.

Tree It also shows us how a sentence is structured

out of its constituent phrases, and how each
of the phrases is structured out of its

Diagra
component words
It provides a visual presentation of the
phrase structure of the sentence.

m A tree diagram also marks the hierarchical

grouping of words into phrases, and phrases
into sentences.
Tree diagram (cont)
• The tree consists of:

• a root S (at the TOP of the tree)

• nodes indicating categories (NP, VP, Det, N, V)

• and terminal nodes or leaves (the words at the bottom)

• The tree diagram shows us two things:

1) the linear order of the words in a sentence; and

2) the hierarchical or constituent structure of a sentence.

Example of a tree diagram
Tree diagram (cont)
• In the above diagram:

• The node S1 (the whole sentence) has three branches, which expands to two nodes
labelled S2 and S3 coordinated by and (conjunction). S2 expanded into two branches
known as NP – VP, and S3 also expanded to two branches NP – VP. Both the NP and VP
of S2 and S3 are further expanded into Art- N for the NP and V – NP for the VP, with the
NP under VP being further expanded.

• Note: Art, N, and V are terminal nodes attached to words (i.e. lexical items), whereas
NP, VP, S are non-terminal nodes.
Tree diagram (cont)
• It is also known as a phrase structure tree or a constituent structure tree. The tree diagram
represents the speaker’s knowledge of a sentence structure in their language highlighting the
following three aspects:

• 1. the linear order of words in a sentence

• 2. grouping of words in syntactic categories

• 3. hierarchical structure of syntactic categories

Word Classes
• Words in a language are divided into types or classes, known as parts of speech. In word classes
with have two categories: lexical and functional categories. Lightfoot and Fasold (2006:100)
explain the difference, as lexical categories are stronger in providing meaning in a sentence as they
cater to parts of speech than functional categories, which focuses mainly on the grammatical
structure.

• Word classes are further grouped into two groups, namely: open and closed word classes.

 Open word classes are words that can have things added on to them, such as nouns, verbs,
adjectives and adverbs.

 Closed word classes are more grammar function type of words, such as determiners, articles,
pronouns, conjunctions, auxiliary verbs and most prepositions.
Phrasal Categories
• Adjective Phrase (AP) – focuses around the adjective

• Noun Phrase (NP) – built around the noun

• Verb Phrase (VP) – built around the verb

• Adverb Phrase (AdvP) – around the adverb

• Prepositional Phrase (PP) – around the preposition and followed by the NP

The main elements of phrases are as follows:

1. Head - word around which a phrase is built

2. Premodifiers - modify the head and precede it

3. Postmodifiers - modify head and follow it

 • Structuralism is a 20th Century intellectual
movement and approach to the human sciences
(it has had an impact on linguistics, sociology,
anthropology and other fields relating to
philosophy) that attempts to analyse a specific

Structuralis
field as a complex system of interrelated parts.

• Structuralism suggest that all human activity,

m
including perception and thought, are
constructed and not natural, and that everything
has meaning because of the language system
in which we operate.

• Structuralism is closely related to Semiotics, the

study of signs, symbols and communication,
and how meaning is constructed and
understood.
Common ideas in structuralism

• firstly, every system has a structure;

• secondly, the structure is what determines the position of each

element of a whole;

• thirdly, "structural laws" deal with coexistence rather than changes;

and

• fourthly, structures are the "real things" that lie beneath the surface or
the appearance of meaning.
Brief history
• Structuralism is widely regarded to have its origins in the work of the Swiss linguistic theorist

Ferdinand de Saussure (1857 - 1913) who developed a science of signs based on linguistics

(semiotics or semiology).

• He held that any language is just a complex system of signs that express ideas, with rules which

govern their usage.

• He called the underlying abstract structure of a language, "langue", and the concrete manifestations

or embodiments, "parole".

• He concluded that any individual sign is essentially arbitrary, and that there is no natural relationship

between a signifier and the signified.

Types of structuralism
• Atomistic structuralism in which the elements are completely specified apart from their role in some larger whole like

folk tale elements in the Vladimir Propp theory. Propp believed that it is possible to do a research based on his

concepts in any territory of the narrative structure. In this manner, he could specify functions and roles for different

characters of a narration according to an exact analogy of the narrative elements. Thus, he not only could include

different characters of various stories in these structural patterns but also could extrapolate their relationships with

each other in mathematical relations and could realize the common aspects of hundreds of popular legends through a

careful attention to the relationships and inattention to the content (Propp, 1997).

• Holistic or diachronic structuralism in which what counts as a possible element is defined apart from the system of

elements but what counts as an actual element is a function of the whole system of differences of which the given

element is a part. For holistic structuralists such as Levi-Strauss, all possible terms must be defined (identified) apart

from any specific system; the specific system of terms then determines which possible terms count as elements, that

is, the system provides the individuation of the elements (Dreyfus and Rabinow, 1982; Dreyfus and Rabinow, 2014).
Approaches to structuralism
1. Semiology derived from Saussurian linguistics and developed as a sociological tool (especially
in film and media studies) through Barthes. It hinges on the analysis of the 'mythical' level of sign
systems.

2. The search for deep structures. Levi-Strauss, Piaget, Jameson and, to some extent, linguistic
structuralism in general, all are involved in a search for the underlying structures of society,
language, myths and even thought. Thus, structuralism is a theory of general meanings: ideas
have an underlying (rational) structure that determines what we think.

3. Marxist structuralism, which owes most to Althusser's endeavors. It draws on the long tradition
of French sociology as well as epistemological debates in the philosophy of science. It sees social
structures existing independently of our knowledge of them and of our actions (Encyclopedia of
Marxism, 1999–2008).
 • Functionalism, in linguistics, the approach to
language study that is concerned with the
functions performed by language, primarily in
terms of cognition (relating information),
expression (indicating mood), and conation

Functionalis (exerting influence).

• Especially associated with the Prague school

m of linguists prominent since the 1930s, the

approach centers on how elements in various
languages accomplish these functions, both
grammatically and phonologically.

• Some linguists have applied the findings to

work on stylistics and literary criticism.
Functionalism (cont)
• Functional theories of language propose that since language is fundamentally a tool, it
is reasonable to assume that its structures are best analysed and understood with
reference to the functions they carry out.

• Functional theories of grammar differ from formal theories of grammar, in that the latter
seeks to define the different elements of language and describe the way they relate to
each other as systems of formal rules or operations, whereas the former defines the
functions performed by language and then relates these functions to the linguistic
elements that carry them out.

• This means that functional theories of grammar tend to pay attention to the way
language is used, and not just to the formal relations between linguistic elements.
Functions in level of language
• Phonological function: the function of the phoneme is to distinguish between different
lexical material.

• Semantic function: (Agent, Patient, Recipient, etc.), describing the role of participants
in states of affairs or actions expressed.

• Syntactic functions: (e.g. subject and Object), defining different perspectives in the
presentation of a linguistic expression

• Pragmatic functions: (Theme and Rheme, Topic and Focus, Predicate), defining the
informational status of constituents, determined by the pragmatic context of the verbal
interaction. Functional descriptions of grammar strive to explain how linguistic functions
are performed in communication using linguistic forms.
 THE END
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