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英语语言学：第4章
Chapter 4
2015年7月17日星期五
Syntax
河南大学外语学院 姜玲
英语语言学：第4章
outline
4.1 Introduction
4.2 Word Classes
4.3 The Prescriptive Approach
4.4 The Descriptive Approach
4.4.1 Structural analysis
4.4.2 Immediate constituent analysis
4.5 Constituent Structure Grammar
4.6 Transformational Grammar
4.7 Systemic Functional Grammar
2015年7月17日星期五
河南大学外语学院 姜玲
英语语言学：第4章
4.1 Introduction
 Syntax: study of the internal structures
of sentence and the rules for the
combination of words.
 Difference between morphology and
syntax
 Morphology: the internal structure of
words
 Syntax: the combination of words
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英语语言学：第4章
Syntactic rules
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(1) a. The hunter fears the cries of the blackbirds.
b. The blackbirds fear the cries of the hunter.
(2) a. Jack looked up the word.
b. Jack looked the word up.
(3) *Cries fear the the of hunter blackbirds the.
Conclusion: The structure of sentence such as
word order can change the meaning. Every
sentence is a sequence of words but not every
sequence of words is a sentence. Sentence
formation has rules, so that we have well/ill
formed or (un)grammatical sentences.
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英语语言学：第4章
4.2 Word Classes
 Nouns are words used to refer to people,
objects, creatures, places, events, qualities,
phenomena and abstract ideas as if they were
all things. cats, dogs, war, wedding, courage,
beauty, rain, love, hatred
 Adjectives are words that describe the thing,
quality, state or action which a noun refers to.
beautiful, red
 Verbs are words used to refer to various actions
and states involving the “things” in events. run,
walk, seem
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英语语言学：第4章
4.2 Word Classes
 Adverbs are words that describe or add to the
meaning of a verb, an adjective, another adverb,
or a sentence, and which answers the questions
introduced by how, where, when, etc. carefully,
slowly, then, now
 Prepositions are words used with nouns in
phrases providing information about time, place
and other connections involving actions and
things.
 Pronouns are words which may replace nouns or
noun phrases.
 Conjunctions are words used to connect and
indicate relationships between events and things.
 Articles, Exclamations, Numerals
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英语语言学：第4章
 The definitions above are useful for
identifying most forms, but they are
never completely accurate. A different
approach might focus on some other
properties of the word classes. For
example, a noun can be defined as a
form that comes after an article (a, an
and the) and can take inflections for
possessive (-’s) and plural (-s). Of
course, not all nouns (eg. information
and mud) have all these characteristics.
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英语语言学：第4章
Phrase structure rules
 Representation:
 The hunter fears the cries of the blackbirds
 Art + N +
V + Art+N+ Prep+Art + N
 The rules which govern the structure of phrases
are known as phrase structure rules or rewrite
rules.
2015年7月17日星期五
河南大学外语学院 姜玲
英语语言学：第4章
4.3 The Prescriptive Approach
 Definition: An approach taken by some
grammarians, mainly in eighteenth-century
England, who lay down rules for the correct or
“proper” use of English by following Latin.
 (a) You must not split infinitives.
 (b) You must not end a sentence with a
preposition.
 To boldly go. →To go boldly.
 Preposition is not a word you can end a
sentence with. (funny)
 Mary runs faster than me. →Mary runs faster
than I.
 Who do you see? →Whom do you see?
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英语语言学：第4章
4.4 The Descriptive Approach
 Definition: An approach taken
throughout the 20th century which
attempts to describe the regular
structures of the language as it is used
by collecting samples. Various
techniques may be employed.
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英语语言学：第4章
4.4.1 Structural analysis
 A descriptive approach studying the distribution
of linguistic forms in a language by means of test
frames, which can be sentences with empty slots
in them.
 (4) The _____ makes a lot of noise. (nouns: car,
radio, child, dog)
 (5) I heard a _____ yesterday. (nouns: car, radio,
child, dog)
 (6) _____ makes a lot of noise. (noun phrases: it,
the car, a dog, Peter, a new car, the scholar with
an American accent)
 (7) I hear _____ yesterday. (noun phrases: it, the
car, a dog, Peter, a new car, the scholar with an
American accent)
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英语语言学：第4章
4.4.2 Immediate constituent analysis
 Language is linear and hierarchical. We can
analyze language from its largest level to the
smallest level, that is from its construction
to its constituents by means of
substitutability and expansion. The first
divisions or cuts of a construction are called
immediate constituents and the final cuts as
the ultimate constituents. The approach to
divide the sentence up into its immediate
constituents by using binary cutting until
obtaining its ultimate constituents is called
immediate constituent analysis (IC).
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英语语言学：第4章
Tree diagram
 (8) The man bought a car.
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英语语言学：第4章
Brackets
 Brackets can also be used but are
arguably less easy to read.
 9) a. [the man bought a car]
 b. [[the man] [bought a car]]
 c. [[[the] [man]] [[bought] [a car]]]
 d. [[[the] [man]] [[bought] [[a] [car]]]]
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河南大学外语学院 姜玲
英语语言学：第4章
Disambiguity
 old men and women

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英语语言学：第4章
4.5 Constituent Structure Grammar
 A grammar which analyzes sentences
using only the idea of constituency,
which reveals a hierarchy of structural
levels. The main principle is labeling
and bracketing based on the idea that
linguistic units can be parts of larger
constructions or can themselves be
made up of smaller parts. (binary and
verb-centered)
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英语语言学：第4章
Tree diagram
Binary
Verbcentered
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英语语言学：第4章
Generative Rules
 The syntax of a language is then seen as a
set of rules which generate sentences in that
language.
 S→NP＋VP
 VP→Vtr. ＋NP
 NP→Art＋N
 Vtr. →buy, sell, build, repair, wash, etc.
 N→man, woman, car, house, bicycle, etc.
 Art→a, an, the
2015年7月17日星期五
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英语语言学：第4章
Sentences generated
 (12) a. The man bought a car.
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b. The man sold a car.
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c. The woman repaired the bicycle.
2015年7月17日星期五
河南大学外语学院 姜玲
英语语言学：第4章
More complex rules
 There is a large number of sentences
in English that such rules cannot
produce. This set of rules has very
limited generative power. The above
rules only deal with simple noun
phrases and transitive verbs. They do
not allow us to deal with any part of the
verb structure such as tense, modals
or aspect.
2015年7月17日星期五
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英语语言学：第4章
More complex rules
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英语语言学：第4章
Sentences generated
 (13) a. The man sells the car in the garage.
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b. The woman washes the bicycle in the
street.
c. The boy repairs the bicycle in the
house.
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英语语言学：第4章
Disambiguity
S
VP
NP
Art
V
N
NP
Art
PP
N
Prep
The
2015年7月17日星期五
boy
repairs the bicycle in
Art
N
the
house
河南大学外语学院 姜玲
英语语言学：第4章
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Recursion (PP rule, CP rule)
PP: in the house around the corner
CP:
Mary helped George.
Cathy thought Mary helped George.
John said Cathy thought Mary helped George.
A children’s rhyme:
This is the house that Jack built.
This is the cat that lived in the house that Jack built.
This is the dog that chased the cat that lived in the house
that Jack built.
 This is the man that keeps the dog that chased the cat
that lived in the house that Jack built.
 This is the woman that married the man that keeps the
dog that chased the cat that lived in the house that Jack
built.
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英语语言学：第4章
Some problems
 Lexical selection restriction
 With simple constituent structure rules, any
noun can be introduced in a combination with
any verb. This does not happen in natural
language. We cannot say:
 (17) *The belief washed an apple.
 Discontinuousness
 The boy cleaned the room up.
 The student looked the word up in the dictionary.
 Relation between sentences that seem to be
closely related structurally and semantically
 Brian hit George→George was hit by Brian.
2015年7月17日星期五
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英语语言学：第4章
4.6 Transformational Grammar
Noam Chomsky, (1928--)，founder of
Transformational Grammar
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英语语言学：第4章
4.6 Transformational Grammar
 Grammar: in the broadest way, a theory
of grammar including phonology and
semantics. a linguistic theory
 We shall only focus on the syntactic
aspect of transformational grammar.
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英语语言学：第4章
Classical theory
 Three parts: phrase structure rules,
transformational rules and morphophonemic
rules.
 S→NP+VP; simple active declarative kernel
sentences;
 negative, passive or interrogative sentences
 passive transformation
 (17) NP1＋Aux＋V＋NP2→NP2 ＋Aux＋be＋
en＋V＋by＋NP1
 The boy has repaired the bicycle →The
bicycle has been repaired by the boy.
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英语语言学：第4章
The morphophonemic rules
 The morphophonemic rules would apply to the
output of the transformational rules. Their
function is to provide the correct morphological
shape to the various parts of the structure and
finally to give the appropriate phonological
description.
 en + repair
→ repair + en
→ repair + ed[d]
 en +write
→ write + en
→ writt[rit] + en
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英语语言学：第4章
Standard theory
 competence and performance (Chapter 1)
 deep structure and surface structure
 The deep structure of a sentence is its most
basic structure both semantically and
syntactically. The surface structure is the
form that people can actually say. It is fairly
arbitrary. Two superficially similar structures
may convey a substantially different
message.
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英语语言学：第4章
deep structure and surface structure
 Consider the following pair of sentences:
 (18) a. John is easy to please.

b. John is eager to please.
 In the first sentence John is doing the
pleasing, and in the latter he is on the
receiving end.
 Structurally similar sentences might be very
different in their meanings, for they have
quite different deep structures.
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英语语言学：第4章
Standard theory
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英语语言学：第4章
Different stages of generative grammar
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Extended Standard Theory
Revised Extended Standard Theory
Government and Binding Theory (GB)
Principles and Parameters Approach
(P&P)
 Minimalist Program (MP)
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英语语言学：第4章
Other branches of GG
 Throughout the development of transformational
grammar, Chomsky has maintained the centrality
of syntax. The syntactic component of
transformational grammar is the generative core.
Other components are interpretive and dependent
on the basic and deep syntactic structure.
 Not everyone agreed with him on this point.
 Generative semantics: give semantics the central
generative role
 Case grammar: see syntax as central but prefer to
work with “case” structures and dependency
relations.
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英语语言学：第4章
4.7 Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG)
Linguists who adopt this view
are interested in relating the
various kinds of structures and
patterns that language shows to
the functions that language
fulfills and to the social settings
in which it is used.
Difference from TG: function and
contextual, purposeful
Halliday’s three meta-functions :
ideational, interpersonal, textual
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M.A.K Halliday
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英语语言学：第4章
Ideational
 Ideational: the function in which we
conceptualize the world as a representation
of experience
 (19) The boy kicked the post. (The post was
kicked by the boy)
 (20) The man liked the new house.
 (21) The child is homeless.
 (22) The girl laughed.
 (23) The visitor said “hello”.
 (24) There is a girl over there.
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英语语言学：第4章
Transitivity
Process
type
Subcategor
y
Nuclear participants
Example
Material
Event(i.e.
happening)
Action(i.e.
doing)
Actor, Goal,
(beneficiary/recipien
t,
range/circumstance)
She built the house (for
the kids)
She climbed (the
mountain)
Mental
Perception
Cognition
Affection
Senser,
Phenomenon
She saw the car
She forgot his name
She liked his music
Relational
Attributive
Identifying
Carrier, Attribute
Token, Value
Maggie was strong
Maggie was our leader
Behavioural
Behaver
She laughed
Verbal
Sayer
She replied
Existential
Existent
There was a beautiful
princess
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河南大学外语学院 姜玲
英语语言学：第4章
Interpersonal
 Interpersonal: set up and maintain social and
personal relations, including communication
roles such as questioner and respondent, and
express the language user’s own attitudes and
comments on the content of an utterance.
 Traditionally declarative, interrogative and
imperative
 Declarative: give information and perform the
function of statement
 Interrogative: request something and perform the
function of question
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英语语言学：第4章
Interpersonal
 Imperative: give instructions and
perform the function of commands
 However, exact correlation between
form and function only occurs in
idealized sentences. We can use
declarative to ask questions, and to
issue instructions.
 You are going out.
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英语语言学：第4章
Mood
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Demand for, and offer of, goods or services
Demand for, and offer of, linguistic information
Politeness increases
(27) a. Pass the salt.
b. Please pass the salt.
c. Can you pass the salt?
d. Could you possibly pass the salt?
e. You couldn’t possibly pass the salt, could
you?
 The more indirect the demand, the more polite it
is felt to be.
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河南大学外语学院 姜玲
英语语言学：第4章
Textual
 Textual: enable the speaker or writer to
construct a text, and the listener or reader
to distinguish a text from a random set of
sentences.
 We have to decide how to order the parts
of the message so as (a) to make it clear
to our audience, and (b) to emphasize, or
make prominent, the essential elements of
it.
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英语语言学：第4章
Information structure
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given (old, known) + new (unknown)
marked vs unmarked
There is a bird on the tree. (unmarked)
A bird is on the tree. (marked)
(28) a. James enjoys tennis more than John.
(less cumbersome)
b. James enjoys tennis more than John
enjoys tennis.
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河南大学外语学院 姜玲
英语语言学：第4章
Textual
 The items that are semantically close
are syntactically close.
 (29) a. The day came at last when we
were due to leave. (more marked)

b. The day when we were due to
leave came at last.
2015年7月17日星期五
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英语语言学：第4章
thematic relation
 theme: the first constituent, the
starting point of the clause ---- what it
is going to be about.
 rheme: the rest of the clause
 (30) a. Gas explosion killed thousands.

b. Thousands were killed by gas
explosion.
 (31) a. The rain came down. (unmarked)

b. Down came the rain. (marked)
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英语语言学：第4章
Textual
The book
is on a table
Thematic
theme
rheme
Information
old
new
Functional approaches concentrating on textual
aspects feature quite highly in discourse analysis
and we will be returning to them in Chapter 7.
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英语语言学：第4章
Summary
4.1 Definition
4.2 Word Classes(ten:5+5)
4.3 The Prescriptive Approach
4.4 The Descriptive Approach
4.4.1 Structural Analysis (with slots)
4.4.2 Immediate constituent analysis (tree)
4.5 Constituent Structure Grammar (tree, rules,
merits, features, problems)
4.6 Transformational Grammar (grammar, classic,
standard, stages, other branches)
4.7 Systemic Functional Grammar (ideational,
interpersonal, textual)
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英语语言学：第4章
Exercise
 1. Define the following terms.
 syntax, word class, prescriptive approach,
descriptive approach, IC analysis, ultimate
constituent, transformational grammar,
ideational function, interpersonal function,
textual function
 2. Draw two tree diagrams for the following
sentence to show the different relationship
of in the car.
 The dog bit the man in the car.
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英语语言学：第4章
Questions for chapter three
and chapter four
 1. How many types of morphemes are
there in the English language? State
what they are and illustrate how they
work.
 2. Give examples to tell the difference
between derivation and compounding.
 3. Give examples to illustrate the
distinction between deep structure and
surface structure.
2015年7月17日星期五
河南大学外语学院 姜玲
英语语言学：第4章
Questions for chapter three
and chapter four
 1. How many types of morphemes are there in
the English language? State what they are and
illustrate how they work.
 There are two types of morphemes in the
English language: free morphemes and bound
morphemes. Free morphemes are independent
units of meaning and can be used freely all by
themselves such as help, table, room, etc.;
bound morphemes are those that cannot be
used independently but have to be combined
with other morphemes, either free or bound, to
form a word such as un-, diss-, anti-, -ful, -ish.
2015年7月17日星期五
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英语语言学：第4章
Questions (continued)
 2. Give examples to tell the difference between
derivation and compounding.
 They’re two important ways of forming new
words in the English language. In terms of
morphemic analysis, derivation can be viewed
as the addition of affixes to stems to form new
words. For example, we add affix “-ly” to a free
morpheme “quick” and we will get a derivative
“quickly”. Compounding is the combination of
two or sometimes more than two words to
create new words, e.g. when the adjective “dead”
is added to a free morpheme “line”, we get a
compound “deadline”.
2015年7月17日星期五
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英语语言学：第4章
Questions (continued)
 3. Give examples to illustrate the distinction
between deep structure and surface structure.
 The deep structure represents the basis for the
meaning of a sentence and the surface structure
represents what a sentence sounds like. One
surface structure may represent several
meanings, which are expressed by different deep
structures. One deep structure may also be
expressed in different surface structures. For
example the same surface structure “the
shooting of hunter is terrible” may have two
deep structures which may mean “the hunter is
terribly shot” or “the hunter’s shooting is terrible”
respectively.
2015年7月17日星期五
河南大学外语学院 姜玲
英语语言学：第4章
2015年7月17日星期五
河南大学外语学院 姜玲