Transcript Document

Chapter 4 Syntax
4.1 Introduction
Syntax: study of the internal structures of sentence and
the rules for the combination of words
(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: structure of the sentence such as word
order can change the meaning. Every sentence is a
sequence of words but not vice versa. Sentence
formation has rules, so that we have well/ill formed or
(un)grammatical sentences.
4.2 Word Classes
Nouns are words used to refer to people, objects, creatures, places,
events, qualities, phenomena and abstract ideas.
Adjectives are words that describe the thing, quality, state or action
which a noun refers to.
Verbs are words used to refer to various actions and states
involving the “things” in events.
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.
Prepositions are words used with nouns in phrases providing
information about time, place and other connections involving
actions and things.
Conjunctions are words used to connect and indicate relationships
between events and things.
(3) 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.
4.3 The Prescriptive Approach:
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.
Preposition is not a word you can end a sentence with.
Who do you see?
4.4 The Descriptive Approach:
an approach taken throughout the 20th century which attempts to describe
the
regular structures of the language as it is used by collecting samples.
4.4.1 Structural Analysis:
a descriptive approach studying the distribution of linguistic forms in a
language by means of test frames.
(4) The ----- makes a lot of noise.
(5) I heard a ----- yesterday.
(6) ----- makes a lot of noise.
(7) I hear ----- yesterday.
• Categories and basic clause types in English:
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NP,VP,PP…
1. SV
2. SVC
3. SVO
4. SVA
5. SVOA
6. SVOC
7. SVOiOd
Or rather,
1. SV(A)
2. SVC
3. SVO(A)
4. SVOC
5. SVOiOd
Phrase categories and their
structures
• Phrase categories----the syntactic units that are built
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around a certain word category are called phrase
categories, such as NP(N), VP(V), AP(A), PP(P).
The structure: specifier + head + complement
Head---- the word around which a phrase is formed
Specifier---- the words on the left side of the heads
Complement---- the words on the right side of the
heads
Phrase structure rules
• The grammatical mechanism that regulates the
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arrangement of elements that make up a phrase is
called a phrase structure rule, such as:
NP  (Det) + N +(PP)……e.g. those people, the fish
on the plate, pretty girls.
VP  (Qual) + V + (NP)……e.g. always play games,
finish assignments.
AP  (Deg) + A + (PP)……very handsome, very
pessimistic, familiar with, very close to
PP  (Deg) + P + (NP)……on the shelf, in the boat,
quite near the station.
The X Bar Theory
X"
specifier
X (head)
X'
complement
Note: The phrase structure rules can be
summed up as XP rule shown in the diagram, in
which X stands for N, V, A or P.
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).
9) [[[the] [man]] [[bought] [[a] [car]]]]
• Cutting sentences into their constituents can show
up and distinguish ambiguities, as in the case of
the ambiguous phrase old men and women, which
may either refer to old men and women of any age
or to old men and old women. The two different
interpretations can be represented by two
different tree structures:
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)
Inverted tree diagram:
Generative Rules
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
(12)a. The man bought a car.
b. The man sold a car.
c. The woman repaired the bicycle.
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.
(13) a. The man sells the car in the garage.
b. The woman washes the bicycle in the street.
c. The boy repairs the bicycle in the house.
Disambiguate
Recursion
John said Cathy thought Mary helped George.
This is the farmer sowing his corn
That kept the cock that crowed in the morn
That waked the priest all shaven and shorn
That married the man all tattered and torn
That kissed the maiden all forlorn
That milked the cow with the crumpled horn
That tossed the dog
That worried the cat
That killed the rat
That ate the malt
That lay in the house that Jack built.
Lexical selection restriction and TG
grammar
(17) *The belief washed an apple.
The boy cleaned the room up. (discontinuous)
Brian hit George→George was hit by Brian.
4.6 TG grammar:
a grammar including phonology and
semantics.
Classical theory: phrase structure rules, transformational rules and
morphophonemic rules.S→NP+VP; simple active declarative
kernel sentences; negative, passive or interrogative sentences
(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.
features: generation and context-free
Standard theory: deep structure and surface structure
Infl Phrase
InflP （ =S ）
VP
NP
Det
A
NP
N Infl
boy Pst
V
find
Det
N
the
evidence
Deep structure & surface
structure
• Consider the following pair of sentences:
John is easy to please.
John is eager to please.
• Structurally similar sentences might be very
different in their meanings, for they have quite
different deep structures.
Deep structure & surface
structure
• Consider the following pair of sentences:
John is easy to please.
John is eager to please.
• Structurally similar sentences might be very
different in their meanings, for they have quite
different deep structures.
Deep structure & surface
structure
• Consider the following pair of sentences:
John is easy to please.
John is eager to please.
• Climbing plants can be terrible.
Transformations
• Auxiliary movement (inversion)
• Do insertion
• Wh-movement
• Move α and constraints on transformations
Auxiliary movement
CP
S
C
Infl Det
Will the
NP
N Infl
train e
V
arrive
• Do insertion
CP
S
C
NP
Infl
Birds
VP
fly
Figure-1
CP
CP
S
C
NP
Infl
Birds do
Figure-2
VP
fly
S
C
Infl NP
Infl
Do birds e
Figure-3
VP
fly
• Wh-movement---- Move a wh phrase to the
specifier position under CP. (Revised)
CP
S
NP
Who
C
VP
NP
e
Infl
Pst
V
win
NP
the game
4.7 Functional Grammar:
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,
(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.
Interpersonal: declarative, interrogative and imperative; mood;
politeness
(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?
Textual: thematic and information structure
Metafunctions
Ideational Function: transitivity
Process type
subcategory
Nuclear participants
example
material
Event(i.e.
happening)
Action(i.e. doing)
Actor, goal,
She built the house (for the kids)
(beneficiary/recipie
She climbed (the mountain)
nt,
range/circumstance)
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
Interpersonal Function: Mood
The lion
subject
chased the tourist lazily through the forest.
finite
mood
predicator
residue
Textual Function: Theme and Information
The book
is on a table
Thematic
theme
rheme
information
old
new
Field refers to the nature of the social action: what it is the
interactants are about. Tenor refers to the statuses and role
relationships: who is taking part in the interaction.
Mode refers to the rhetorical channel and function of the discourse:
what part the text is playing.
Silver
In this job, Anne, we’re working with silver. Now silver needs to
have love. Yea, You know---the people that buy silver love it.
Yea---guess they would
Yes, mm-well naturally, I mean to say that it’s got a lovely gleam
about it, you know; and if they come in, they’re usually people who
love beautiful things. So you have to be beautiful with it; and you
sell it with beauty. You-I’m sure you know how to do that. Oh but
you must! Let’s hear-let’s hear-look: you say ‘Madam! Isn’t that
beautiful!” If you suggest it’s beautiful, they see it as beautiful.
Field (a) General. Retail selling in department store:
silver department. Task: selling silverware. (b) Specific.
Instruction of new member. Task: teaching how to sell
silverware. Means of achievement : [premise 1] virtues
of silver, [premise 2] customers’ appreciation thereof,
[action] encouragement of this appreciation.
Tenor Manageress and new salesgirl; a complex status
relationship embodying (a) senior-junior, (b) expertnovice, (c) teacher-apprentice, with a fourth, personal
relationship at a metaphorical level, (d) motherdaughter.
Mode Natural, spontaneous speech. One-sided
dialogue (monologue with acknowledgement). Part 1,
expository: exposition-doubt-explanation. Part 2,
exhortatory: injunction-doubt-illustration and
reassurance. (Halliday, 2000:390)