Transcript Unit 4 - njau.edu.cn

Unit 4
The Structures of English (1)
Contents
5.1
5.2
5.3
5.4
Defining syntax （句法学）
Syntactic patterns in English
Syntactic relations
The hierarchical structuring of English
sentences
5.5 Surface and deep structures
5.1 Defining syntax

Syntax is the study of how words combine
into sentences; specifically the syntactic
patterns of sentences /internal structures of
sentences
/syntactic
properties
and
functions, and the rules governing the
syntactic combinations.
Syntax accounts for:
-- the grammaticality of sentences;
-- word order;
-- hierarchical organization of sentences;
-- grammatical relations
-- whether different structures have
different meanings or the same meaning;
-- the creative aspect of language.
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The boy found the ball.
*The boy found quickly.
*The boy found in the house.
Bill hired Mary.
Mary hired bill.
Mary was hired by Bill.
He has everything a woman wants,
-- and he wants everything a woman has.
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Recursiveness/ Recursion
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PP. 74-75
No. 1
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This
that
that
that
that
that
that
that
that
that
that
A children's rhyme
is the farmer sowing the corn,
kept the cock that crowed in the morn,
waked the priest all shaven and shorn,
married the man all tattered and torn,
kissed the maiden all forlorn,
milked the cow with the crumpled horn,
tossed the dog,
worried the cat,
killed the rat,
ate the malt,
lay in the house that Jack built.
5.2 Sentence patterns/types in English
i) SVC Mary is a nurse/poor.
ii) SVA Mary weighs 120 pounds.
iii) SV Mary came.
iv) SVO Mary cheated me.
v) SVOC Mary called me Jim.
vi) SVOA Mary put her child down.
vii) SVOO Mary lend him some money.
Language types
SVO: English, French, Swahili, Hausa, Thai
VSO: Tagalog, Irish, (Classical) Arabic,
(Biblical) Hebrew
SOV: Turkish, Japanese, Persian, Georgian
OVS: Apalai (Brazil), Barasano (Colombia),
Panare (Venezuela)
OSV: Apurina and Xavante (Brazil)
VOS: Cakchiquel (Guatemala), Huave
(Mexico)

The most frequent word orders in
languages of the world are SVO, VSO, and
SOV, while languages with OVS, OSV, and
VOS as basic word orders are much rarer.
P. 78
No. 8
5.3 Syntactic relations

Positional
relation
(word
order,
horizontal
relations,
syntagmatic
relations--Hjemslev; chain relations-Halliday)
Syntagmatic relation refers to the
sequential or linear arrangement of words
in a language.
 Any language has its patterns of
arrangement.
 Word order determines syntactic relations
and sentence meaning, esp. for those
analytical languages like Chinese.
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Relation of substitutability (associative
relations--Saussure;
paradigmatic
relations--Hjemslev;
vertical
relations;
choice relations--Halliday)
(1) He is fond of dancing/swimming/his
pretty cousin/literature, etc.
(2) He left yesterday/at midnight/before he
had finished his homework/ the moment I
arrived.
5.4 The hierarchical structuring of
English
Sentences are not strings of words put together
linearly but rather hierarchical constructions.

e.g. young boys and girls
IC analysis
Form classes
 Form classes: phonetic and grammatical
features
(distribution,
grammatical
function, inflectional features)

Jack
stole
a horse
yesterday
The man
He
bought
witnessed
some books
the accident
there
alone
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John likes singing Chinese songs.
John likes?
likes singing?
singing Chinese?
BUT: likes (singing (Chinese songs))

John (likes (singing (Chinese songs)))
IC analysis
Jack stole a horse yesterday
Jack
stole a horse yesterday
stole a horse
stole
a horse
a horse
yesterday
Some concepts
1) Binary cutting
2) Immediate constituent/ ultimate
constituent
3) Tree diagram/ labeled tree diagram
4) IC analysis: the approach to analyze
sentences into immediate constituents
by binary cuttings until obtaining the
ultimate constituents
Labeled tree-diagram
S
NP
VP
VP
V
AdvP
Np
Det N
Jack stole a
horse yesterday
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Practice: Apply IC analysis onto the
following sentence:
The world today is highly competitive.
Ambiguity

PP. 75-76
No. 2, 3
Two ways of IC analysis
Eye drops off shelf
Eye
drops off shelf
drops
off
off shelf
shelf
Eye drops off shelf
Eye drops
Eye drops
off shelf
off
shelf
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But IC analysis cannot
-- remove the ambiguity as found in
Flying planes can be dangerous.
-- explain why structures like the following
look similar but basically different:
a. He is easy to please.
b. He is eager to please.
P. 77 No. 6
5.5 Surface and deep structures
e.g. He is easy to please.
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He is eager to please.
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Analysis in terms of Chomsky’s TG grammar
Deep structure
S
NP
VP
Deep structure
S
S
VP
he is eager to please sb.
sb. pleases him is easy
Surface structure
He is eager/easy to please
Presentation session
Interrogative sentences in English
Assignments:
P. 80 No. 2, 3
 P. 81
No. 6
 Collect at least two cases of ambiguity
from newspaper headlines,
advertisements, etc.
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