Download Document

Syntax:
The Sentence Patterns of Language
Richard Ortega
Grammatical vs. Ungrammatical
Well-formed or grammatical sentence:
a sequence of words that conform to the
rules of syntax.
 Ill-formed or ungrammatical sentence:
a sequence of words that violate the
rules of syntax

Grammatical or Ungrammatical:
1. The boy found the ball
2. The boy found quickly
3. The boy found in the house
4. The boy found the ball in the house
5. Disa slept the baby
6. Disa slept soundly
Find: Transitive verb (with object)
Sleep: Intransitive verb (no object)
THE EIGHT PARTS OF SPEECH
verb: (abbrev. v.) expresses action, condition, or state of being
noun: (abbrev. n.) names a person, place, thing, or idea
pronoun: (abbrev. prn.) substitutes for a noun and functions as one
adjective: (abbrev. adj.) describes, modifies, or limits nouns and
pronouns
adverb: (abbrev. adv.) describes, modifies, or limits a verb, adj. or
other adv.
preposition: (abbrev. p.) relates a noun or pronoun to another word
in a sentence
conjunction: (abbrev. con.) links words, phrases and clauses
interjection: (abbrev. int.) expresses a strong emotion or commands
attention
Identify the part of speech for each
of the following:
like prep.
tired adj.
dude, n.
but conj.
Wow! interject.
I prn.
really adv.
dig v.
grammar n.
A part of speech is always determined by its function in the sentence
The mother gave her infant baby food.
Jim and Sara love to play video games.
A dictionary can be a good friend, when in doubt
Syntactic Categories (1)
Lexical categories
 Noun (N)
 Verb (V)
 Adjective (A)
 Preposition (P)
 Adverb (Adv)
Examples
 moisture, policy
 melt, remain
 good, intelligent
 to, near
 slowly, now
Syntactic Categories (2)
Non-lexical categories
 Determiner (Det)
 Conjunction (Conj)
 Complementizer (Comp)
Examples
 the, this
 and, or
 that (clause)
Indicate the category of each word in the
following sentences.
a. The glass suddenly broke.
Det / N / Adv / V
b. A jogger ran towards the end of the lane.
Det / N / V / P / Det / N / P / Det / N
c. The peaches never appear quite ripe.
Det / N / Adv / V / Adv / A
d. Gillian will play the trumpet and the drums in the orchestra.
N / Aux / V / Det / N / Conj / Det / N / P / Det / N
Phrases




NP : Noun Phrase
The car, a clever student
VP : Verb Phrase
study hard, play the guitar
PP : Prepositional Phrase
in the class, above the earth
AP : Adjective Phrase
very tall, quite certain
Phrase Structure Rules


NP  (Det) N (PP)
PP  P NP
The bus (NP)
Det
N
The
bus
The bus in the yard
NP
Det
N
PP
P
NP
Det
The
bus
in the
N
yard
Phrase Structure Rules


VP  V (NP) (PP)
S  NP (Aux) VP
took the money (VP)
V
NP
Det
took
the
took the money from the bank
VP
V
N
NP
Det
money
PP
N
P
NP
Det
took
the money from the
N
bank
Draw the tree diagram.
1. repaired the telephone
2. the success of the program
3. a film about pollution
4. move towards the window
5. cast a spell on the broomstick
The main structure rules
1. S  NP (Aux) VP
2. NP  (Det) (AP) N (PP)
3. VP  V (NP) (PP) (Adv) (CP)
4. PP  P NP
5. AP  Adj (PP) N
6. CP  Comp S
Example (1)
The old tree swayed in the wind
S
NP
Det
Adj
VP
N
V
PP
P
NP
Det
The
old
tree
swayed
in the
N
wind
Example (2)
The children put the toy in the box
S
NP
Det
VP
N
V
NP
Det
PP
N
P
NP
Det
The
children
put
the
toy
in the
N
box