Download Introduction to Syntax

Introduction to Syntax
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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.
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I trying to help him the best I can do.
I wish I was the president of Indonesia
They are play football in the school yard.
This morning I see a horrible accident.
The book read the man.
John hopes to run/running
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.
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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
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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 one
syntactic position in a sentence and another.
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“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.
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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.
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“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 smaller units, or
constituents. After a sentence is cut into its constituent
elements, the two parts that are yielded are called
immediate constituents. Then, we get the smallest
grammatical unit obtained through the division, or
segmentation, which is seen as the ultimate
constituent.
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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.
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A construction is a relationship between constituents.
Constructions are divided into two types: endocentric
constructions and exocentric constructions.
Endocentric construction is one whose distribution is
functionally equivalent 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 syntactically
related words where none of the words is functionally
equivalent to the group as a whole. There is no definable
center or head inside the group.
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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
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Containing no element that is functionally
equivalent to the whole structure (non-headed or
unheaded)
Some phrases are always exocentric
◦ The boy stood on the burning deck.
◦ Who was the man in the iron mask?
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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:
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Linear order of constituents
Categorization of constituents
Grouping of constituents into constituent
structures
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Sentences in any language are constructed from a rather
small set of basic structural patterns and through certain
processes involving the expansion or transformation of
these basic patterns.
When we consider sentence types from another
perspective, it can be shown that each of the longer
sentences of a language (and these are in the majority
usually) is structured in the same way as one of a
relatively small number of short sentences which are
impossible to reduce to a short form.
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”.
Mill
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Simple Sentence
Coordinate Sentence
Complex Sentence
John Stuart
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
B and C are constituents of A
2.
D and E are constituents of C.
3.
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.
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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.
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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 nouns and
verbs.
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.
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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.
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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: past , present
loved,
love
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
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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
the
transformationalgenerative grammar (TG), 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.
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It is called "transformational-generative" grammar
because it attempts to do two things:
to provide the rules that can be used to generate
grammatical sentences
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
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Visiting aunts can be boring
John is eager to please
John is easy to please
Flying planes can be dangerous
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Surface structure is the actually produced
structure.
directly observable actual form of sentences as they
are used in communication
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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.
Thanks for your patience