Transcript introddd to syntax
Introduction to Syntax
Syntax is a part o linguistic study that determines how words or phrases “put together “ to form a sentence.
Syntactic rules/grammar account for the “grammaticality”/correctness of sentences, and the ordering of words and morphemes.
1. I trying to help him the best I can do.
2. I wish I was the president of Indonesia 3. They are play football in the school yard.
4. This morning I see a horrible accident.
5. The book read the man.
6. John hopes to run/running 7. He is taller than I/ He is taller than me
Syntax involves our knowledge of structural ambiguity our knowledge that sentences may be paraphrases of each other our knowledge of the grammatical function of each part of a sentence, that is, of the grammatical relations.
It is also concerned with speakers' ability to produce and understand an infinite set of possible sentences.
The sentence is regarded the highest-ranking unit of grammar, and therefore that the purpose of a grammatical description is to define, making use of whatever descriptive apparatus that may be necessary (rules, categories, etc).
Sentence Clause Phrase/Group Word Morpheme
Grammatical Units and Scale
8 kinds of parts of speechs: 1. Noun 2. verb 3. Pronoun 4. Adverb 5. Adjective 6. Preposition 7. Conjuction 8. Articles/determiners
One aspect of the syntactic structure of sentences is the division of a sentence into phrases, and those phrases into further phrases, and so forth. Another aspect of the syntactic structure of a sentence is "movement" relations that hold between syntactic position in a sentence and another.
one
“A unit forming part of a larger structure” Chalker and Weiner 1998 Although the term string is often used technically to refer to sequences of words, sentences are not merely strings of words in a permissible order and making sense.
They are structured into successive components, consisting of single words or groups of words. These groups and single words are called constituents (i.e. structural units), and when they are considered as part of the successive unraveling of a sentence, they are known as its immediate constituents.
When we consider sentence
My friend came home late last night
, we find out that it consists of seven word arranged in a particular order.
In syntax, the seven words in this model sentence are its ultimate constituents. This sentence and in general any sentence of the language may be represented as a particular arrangement of the ultimate constituents, which are the minimal grammatical elements, of which the sentence is composed.
Every sentence has therefore what we will refer to as a linear structure. The small units are known as its immediate constituents.
“One of the parts which a linguist unit is immediately divisible, by a process of
immediate constituent analysis.”
IC Chalker and Weiner Formal accounts of syntax are based on establishing the basic constituents, namely, categories, from which word strings are formed. Sentences are regarded as hierarchies of interlocking
immediate constituents
smaller . Then, we get the units, or constituents. After a sentence is cut into its constituent elements, the two parts that are yielded are called
smallest grammatical unit
segmentation, obtained through the which is seen as
division
the , or ultimate constituent.
The segmentation of the sentence up into its immediate constituents by using binary cuttings until its ultimate constituents are obtained is an important approach to the realization of the nature of language, called
Immediate Constituent Analysis
(IC Analysis). The analysis can be carried out in ways of tree diagrams, bracketing or any other. For example: (1) Poor| John║ ran |out.
A construction is a relationship between constituents.
Constructions are divided into two types:
endocentric
constructions and
exocentric
constructions.
Endocentric
functionally construction is one whose
equivalent distribution
is to that of one or more of its constituents. A word or a group of words acts as a definable center or head.
Exocentric
construction refers to a group of
related words syntactically
where none of the words is functionally equivalent to the group as a whole. There is no definable center or head inside the group.
Some types of phrase contain a HEAD word and have the same formal function in their clause as the single head would: Too
dreadful
Rather more
surprisingly She
who must be obeyed
Exocentric Construction
Containing equivalent to the whole structure (
unheaded
) no element that is functionally
non-headed
or ◦ ◦ Some phrases are always exocentric The boy stood
on the burning deck.
Who was the man
in the iron mask
?
A basic English sentence (consisting of subject and predicate) is always exocentric, since neither part can stand for the whole: ◦ The boy / stood on the burning deck.
Three universal basic syntactic rules: Linear order of constituents Categorization of constituents Grouping of constituents into constituent structures
Sentences in any language are
constructed
from a rather
small set of basic structural patterns
processes involving the expansion or transformation of these basic patterns.
and through certain When we consider sentence types from another perspective, it can be shown that
sentences each
of the
longer
of a language (and these are in the majority usually) is
structured
in the
same
relatively small number of short sentences which are impossible to reduce to a short form.
way as one of a These short sentences have the basic sentence types. There are different ways of dealing with sentence types.
“ The structure of every sentence is a lesson in logic”.
John Stuart Mill Simple Sentence Coordinate Sentence Complex Sentence
• • • • • A simple sentence contains only one clause with a single verb group.
Dora yelled.
Christ resembled his father.
Jack and Jill love each other.
A runner from Ethiopia won the New York marathon this year.
The students should have been working on the term paper.
• • A coordinate sentence has two clauses conjoined into one by a coordinating conjunction. (and, but, or). They hold equal status.
Christ resembled his father, but his brother resembled his mother.
Mark loves Dora, and she feels it .
A complex sentence is composed of two clauses with one holding main status (matrix clause) and the other incorporated or embedded into it (embedded clause), which is often introduced by a subordinator (who, that, though, when, because, as, since, although) Mark denied that Dora yelled.
The murderer escaped when the police arrived at the scene.
The traditional approach to syntactic function identifies constituents of the sentence, states the part of speech each word belongs to, describes the inflexion involved, and explains the relationship each word related to the others.
According to its relation to other constituents, a constituent may serve certain syntactic function in a clause.
A constituency refers to the whole body of a sentence which is made up of lexical items (constituents) that are hierarchically ordered with respect to each other
A B C D E
This diagram formally reads as 1.
2.
3.
B and C are constituents of A D and E are constituents of C.
D and E are not constituents of B as they are not linked to B.
Who climbs the Grammar-Tree distinctly knows Where Noun and Verb and Participle grows.
John Dryden In describing the constituent of a structure, a tree diagram is employed as a tool to link members of a structure.
A rule which states that a phrase of a specific category. E.g. a rule = NP+VP, S must consist of a NP followed by VP Phrase Marker: “a string of elements” Phrase structure tree: a tree diagram which shows the division of a form into successively smaller constituents and labels each as belonging to one or more categories Also labelled bracketing
boys play well
Phrase-markers can be related to each other by dominance and precedence .
Dominance 1. VP node dominates all the other nodes.
2. VP node immediately dominates the nodes labeled V and PP.
Precedence 1. V node precedes the nodes labeled PP, P, NP, det, and N as well as
in, the
and
house
.
2. V node immediately precedes the PP, P and
in
.
Number is a grammatical category for the analysis of such contrasts as singular and plural of certain word classes. In English, number is a feature of
verbs
.
nouns
and Gender demonstrates such contrasts as "
masculine
,
feminine
, and neuter", and "
animate
:
inanimate
", etc. for the analysis of certain word classes. In most languages, grammatical gender has little to do with the biological sex. For instance, in French, the moon, which has nothing to do with the biological sex, is grammatically feminine.
Inflectional category, basically of nouns, which typically marks their role in relation to other parts of the sentence.
The case category is often used in the analysis of word classes to identify the syntactic relationship between words in a sentence.
Inflectional category whose basic role is to indicate the time of an event etc. in relation to the moment of speaking Divided notionally:
present, past, future
Inflectional distinction:
love
past , present
loved,
Verbal categories that distinguish the status of events, etc. in relation to specific period of time, as opposed to their simple location in the present, past, or future
I am reading your paperI have read your pap
Syntax is seen to be a
fundamental principle
for encoding and decoding meaning and is the part of grammar shared by speakers and listeners in communication. In 1957, the American linguist Chomsky proposed generative grammar
(TG)
the transformational , thus providing a model for the description of human languages. The
goal
of TG is to find out a system of rules to account for the linguistic competence of native speakers of a language to form grammatical sentences.
It is called "transformational-generative" grammar because it attempts to do two things: to provide the
rules
grammatical sentences that can be used to
generate
how basic sentences can be
transformed
into either synonymous phrases or more complex sentences.
Abstract ‘syntactic representation’ posited to explain the way in which actual sentences are interpreted ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ Visiting aunts can be boring John is eager to please John is easy to please Flying planes can be dangerous
Surface structure
is the actually produced structure. directly observable actual form of sentences as they are used in communication
The relationship between deep structure and surface structure is that of transformation. Since the relationship is usually a complicated one, we can best use transformational rules in the total process of relating deep structure to surface structures.