Download The boy kicked the ball

Lecture 6
Syntax
句法学
What is syntax
• SYNTAX is the study of the rules
governing the ways different constituents
are combined to form sentences in a
language,
or
the
study
of
the
interrelationships between elements in
sentence structures. It tries to answer
two questions:
• What words can occur together;
• In what order the words are put together.
• 6.1 Syntactic relations 句法关系
• 6.2 Construction and constituents 结构与成
分
• 6.3 Syntactic functions 句法功能
• 6.4 Categories 范畴
• 6.5 Phrase, clause and sentence
• 6.6 The extension of sentence
• 6.7 Syntax beyond the sentence
6.1 Syntactic relations 句
法关系
• Syntactic relations can be analysed
into three kinds, namely, positional
relations ( 位 置 关 系 ), relations of
substitutability （ 替 换 关 系 ), and
relations of co-occurrence (同现关系).
6.1.1 Positional relations
• The boy kicked the ball.
• Positional relation, or WORD ORDER, refers to the
sequential arrangement of words in a language. If the words
in a sentence fail to occur in a fixed order required by the
convention of a language, one tends to produce an utterance
either ungrammatical or nonsensical at all.
• * Boy the ball kicked the.
• * The ball kicked the boy.
• There are sentences in which when
we change the word order, we get
grammatical sentences that make
sense, but the meaning may be just
the opposite.
• The boy laughed at the girl.
• The girl laughed at the boy.
• Positional relations are a manifestation of one
aspect of SYNTAGMATIC RELATIONS (组合关
系). This was first observed by F. de Saussure
(1857-1913).They are also called HORIZONTAL
RELATIONS or simply CHAIN RELATIONS (链状
关系). So far as word order or positional relation
is concerned, they are SVO, VSO, SOV, OVS,
OSV, and VOS. English belongs to SVO type,
though this does not mean that SVO is the only
possible word order.
6.1.2 Relation of substitutability
• The RELATION OF SUBSTITUTABILITY
refers to classes or sets of words
substitutable for each other grammatically
in sentences with the same structure.
• The ________ smiles.
• We can fill in here several different words:
man, woman, boy, girl, student, teacher,
etc. These words are in the relation of
substitutability.
• This relationship does not refer to
individual words only. It refers to
groups of more than one word which
together may be substitutable
grammatically for a single word of a
particular set.
•
This is what Saussure called ASSOCIATIVE relations
( 联想 关 系), or in Hjemslev's term, PARADIGMATIC
relations (聚合关系). To make it more understandable,
they are called VERTICAL relations or CHOICE
relations (选择关系)
6.1.3 Relation of cooccurrence
• By the relation of CO-OCCURENCE
one means that words of different
sets of clauses may permit, or
require, the occurrence of a word of
another set or class to form a
sentence or a particular part of a
sentence.
• Thus relations of co-occurrence partly
belong to syntagmatic relations, partly to
paradigmatic relations.
6.2 Construction and
constituents
• The boy kicked the ball.
• A sentence not only has a linear structure, that is,
it consists of individual words one after another
in a line; it also has a hierarchical structure – it’s
made up of layers of word groups. The
relationship between a sentence and its
component elements is usually referred to as the
relationship between a grammatical construction
and its constituents.
6.2.1 Immediate Constituent
analysis 直接成分分析
• This idea was first put forward by Leonard
Bloomfield. According to him, any
construction can be cut into immediate
constituents – word groups, which can be
further cut into its own immediate
constituents – words. Finally, we reach the
ultimate constituent ( 最 终 成 分 ) –
morphemes. Usually we stop at the level of
words.
The boy
kicked the ball
This tree contains three Nodes. The top-most node, A, is the mother
of the two lower nodes (节), B and C. B and C are Daughters of the
same mother, and so we refer to them as Sister nodes. The simple
tree in the above represents a constituent of category A which is
composed of two parts, one of category B and the other of category
C, occurring in that order.
The
boy kicked the
ball
• Another way to present the
immediate
constituents
is
by
bracketing, which is used less
common but more economical.
• (((The) (boy)) ((ate) ((the) (apple))))
• How do we decide where the cut
should
be?
The
principle
is
substitutability. That is, whether it’s
possible to replace the sequence of
words in the constituent by a single
word.
• This immediate constituent analysis
method has a big advantage: it can
help to clear ambiguity.
• leave the book on the shelf
put the book
on the shelf
don’t move
the book
• leave the book on the shelf
leave the book on the shelf
• Sometimes we need a labeled tree
diagram to reveal this ambiguity.
• Is he really that kind?
•
Det
N
•
NP
• Is he really that kind?
•
adv.
adj.
AP
• But this IC analysis also has its
problems. For example, it can’t show
ambiguity in a word group like “the
love of God” and “the shooting of
hunters”. This analysis cannot make
clear whether God is the subject or
object of “love”, or whether “hunters”
is the subject or object of “shooting”.
6.2.2 Endocentric and
Exocentric constructions
• The syntactic constructions can be
classified into two main types:
endocentric
and
exocentric
constructions, depending on their
distribution and the relation between
their constituents.
6.2.2.1 Endocentric
• ENDOCENTRIC construction is one whose
distribution is functionally equivalent to that of
one or more of its constituents, i.e., a word or a
group of words, which serves as a definable
CENTRE or HEAD. That is to say, endocentric
constructions are literal expansions of its
constituent, and the construction is in a
relationship of substitutability of the head. The
construction and the head are syntactically
equivalent.
• Usually noun phrases, verb phrases and adjective phrases
belong to endocentric types because the constituent items
are subordinate to the Head.
•
•
•
•
•
•
More complicated examples include:
will have already been leaving;
really very late;
the man about whom I have been talking
swimming in the lake;
hot beyond endurance
6.2.2.2 Exocentric
• EXOCENTRIC construction is just the opposite of
endocentric construction. It refers to a group of
syntactically related words where none of the
words is functionally equivalent to the group as a
whole, that is, there is no definable “Centre” or
“Head” inside the group. Exocentric construction
usually includes basic sentence, prepositional
phrase, predicate (verb + object) construction,
and connective (be + complement) construction.
• (a) The boy smiled. (Neither constituent can
substitute for the sentence structure as a whole.)
• (b) He hid behind the door. (Neither constituent
can
function
as
an
adverbial.)
• (c) He kicked the ball. (Neither constituent
stands
for
the
verb-object
sequence.)
• (d) John seemed angry. (After division, the
connective construction no longer exists.)
6.2.3 Subordination and
coordination 从属与并列
• Endocentric constructions fall into
two main types, depending on the
relation
between
constituents:
coordination and subordination.
6.2.3.1 Coordination
• COORDINATION is a common syntactic pattern
in English and other languages formed by grouping
together two or more categories of the same type
with the help of a conjunction such as and, but
and or . This phenomenon is known as coordination.
And these two or more words or phrases or
clauses have equivalent syntactic status, each of
the separate constituents can stand for the
original construction functionally.
• Coordination of NPs:
• [NP the lady] or [NP the tiger]
•
Coordination of VPs:
• [VP go to the library] and [VP read a book ]
•
Coordination of PPs:
• [PP down the stairs] and [PP out the door ]
•
Coordination of APs:
• [AP quite expensive] and [AP very beautiful]
•
Coordination of Ss:
•
[S John loves Mary] and [S Mary loves John too].
• One property coordination reveals is that
there is no limit on the number of
coordinated categories that can appear
prior to the conjunction. Thus, we can
form structures in which the subject NP
contains four smaller NPs prior to the
underlined conjunction and one after it:
•
[NP A man, a woman, a boy, a cat and a
dog] got into the car.
•
Therefore, coordination occupies its own
place in the creativity of language:
recursiveness (递归性).
6.2.3.2 Subordination
• SUBORDINATION refers to the process
or result of linking linguistic units so that
they have different syntactic status, one
being dependent upon the other, and
usually a constituent of the other. Thus
the subordinate constituents are words
which modify the Head, as shown in the
underlined parts of the constructions.
Consequently, they can be called modifiers.
• (a) two dogs
Head
•
(b) (My brother) can drink (wine).
•
Head
•
(c) Swimming in the lake (is fun).
•
Head
•
(d) (The pepper was) hot beyond endurance.
•
Head
• Certainly, clauses can be used as
subordinate constituents, the three basic
types of subordinate clauses are:
complement clauses, adjunct (or adverbial)
clauses, and relative clauses.
• (a) John believes [that the airplane was
invented by an Irishman]. (complement
clause)
(b) Elizabeth opened her presents [before
John finished his dinner]. (adverbial clause)
(c) The woman [that I love] is moving to
the south. (relative clause).
• I met a man who had a son whose
wife sold cookies that she had baked
in her kitchen that was fully equipped
with electrical appliances that were
new.
6.3 Syntactic functions
• The SYNTACTIC FUNCTION shows the
relationship between a linguistic form and
other parts of the linguistic pattern in
which it is used.
• Names of functions are expressed in
terms of subjects, objects, predicators,
modifiers, complements, etc.
6.3.1 Subject
• In some languages, subject refers to one
of the nouns in the nominative case.
• The typical example can be found in Latin,
where subject is always in nominative case,
such as pater and filius in the following
examples.
– pater filium amat (the father loves the son)
– patrum filius amat (the son loves the father)
• In English, the subject of a sentence is
often said to be the agent, or the doer of
the action, while the object is the person
or thing acted upon by the agent.
– This definition seems to work for these
sentences:
– Mary slapped John. ■ A dog bit Bill.
• but is clearly wrong in the following
examples:
– John was bitten by a dog.
– John underwent major heart surgery.
• In order to account for the case of
subject in passive voice, we have two other
terms “grammatical subject” (John) and
“logical subject” (a dog).
• Another traditional definition of the subject is
“what the sentence is about” (i.e., topic).
• Again, this seems to work for many sentences,
such as
– Bill is a very crafty fellow.
• but fails in others, such as
– (Jack is pretty reliable, but) Bill I don’t trust.
– As for Bill, I wouldn’t take his promises very seriously.
• Traditionally we distinguish between three
types of subjects:
• Psychological subject: the starting point of
a message; the first element in a sentence;
• Grammatical subject: the element which
shows certain grammatical relations, e.g.,
the noun in a nominative case; the noun
which the verb agrees with;
• Logical subject: the doer of an action.
•
•
•
•
•
M. A. K. Halliday ：
psychological subject – theme;
grammatical subject – subject;
logical subject – actor.
According to Halliday, the three
things may or may not be realized by
the same element in a sentence.
•
•
1. Mother has given my brother this toy.
theme, subject and actor.
•
•
2. My brother has been given this toy by Mother.
theme, subject
actor
•
•
3. This toy my brother has been given by Mother.
theme
subject
actor
•
•
4. This film I have already seen many times.
theme subject, actor
•
•
5. Most of the sentences we hear we have never heard before.
theme
subject, actor
•
•
In Chinese, there are even more problems with
the notion subject. Traditionally we depend on
the meaning to decide which is the subject.
There is little formal indication: verbs don’t
inflect, nouns don’t have cases, etc.
这 本 书 我 看 完 了。
前置宾语 主语
饭 吃 完 了。
鸡 不 吃 了。
• 赵 元 任 (1892-1982), the best known
Chinese linguist in the world, proposes to
talk about topic and comment instead of
subject and predicate in Chinese.
• 我 们 今 天 种 树。
• topic comment
• 今 天 我 们 种 树。
• topic comment
Properties of subjects in
English
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
A. Word order: Subject ordinarily precedes the verb in statement:
a. Sally collects stamps.
b.*Collects Sally stamps.
B. Pro-forms: The first and third person pronouns in English appear in a special form
when the pronoun is a subject. This form is not used when the pronoun occurs in other
positions:
a. He hates me.
b. I hate him.
c. We threw stones at them.
d. They threw stones at us.
C. Agreement with verb: In the simple present tense, an –s is added to the verb when
a third person subject is singular. However, the number and person of the object or
any other element in the sentence have no effect at all on the form of the verb:
a. She angers him.
b. They anger him.
c. She angers them.
• D. Content questions: if the subject is replaced by a
question word (who or what), the rest of the sentence
remains unchanged. But when any other element of the
sentence is replaced by a question word, an auxiliary verb
must appear before the subject. If the basic sentence does
not contain an auxiliary verb, we must insert did or do(es)
immediately after the question word.
• (a) John stole/would steal Mrs. Thatcher‘s picture from the
British Council.
• (b) Who stole/would steal Mrs. Thatcher's picture from the
British Council?
• (c) What would John steal, if he had the chance?
• (d) What did John steal from the British Council?
• (e) Where did John steal Mrs. Thatcher's picture from?
•
•
• E. Tag question: A TAG QUESTION is
used to seek confirmation of a statement.
It always contains a pronoun which refers
back to the subject, and never to any
other element in the sentence.
• (a) John loves Mary, doesn't he?
• (b) Mary loves John, doesn't she?
• (c)*John loves Mary, doesn't she?
6.3.2 Predicate 谓语
• PREDICATE refers to a major constituent of
sentence structure in a binary analysis in which all
obligatory constituents other than the subject
were considered together. It usually expresses
actions, processes, and states that refer to the
subject.
•
(a) The boy is running.
•
(b) Peter broke the glass.
•
(c) Jane must be mad!
• As predicate includes constituents
such as verb, object, complement,
etc., people find it illogical to use a
class-term, namely, the verb, in
grammatical analysis of a functional
nature. The word PREDICATOR is
suggested by Randolph Quirk for
verb or verbs included in a predicate.
6.3.3 Object
• OBJECT is a term related to subject. Since,
traditionally, subject can be defined as the doer
of the action, object may refer to the “receiver”
or “goal” of an action – what the action is directed
at. It is further classified into DIRECT OBJECT
and INDIRECT OBJECT.
• (a) Mother bought a doll.
• (b) Mother gave my sister a doll.
•
Ind. Obj. Dir. Obj.
In some inflecting languages, object is
marked by case labels: the accusative case
for direct object, and the dative case for
indirect object.
• Herr Braun gibt dem Gast den Füller.
dative
accusative
• Der Freund Kauft dem Kind eine Uhr.
dative
accusative
•
• In English, “object” is recognised by
tracing its relation to word order
(after the verb and preposition) and
by inflections (of pronouns).
• I met him yesterday.
• He saw me yesterday.
• She resembles her mother.
• Not every noun that occurs after the
verb is the object. Only those that
can function as subjects in passive
sentences can be called objects.
• (a) He died last week.
• (b) The match lasted three hours.
• (c) He weighed 100 pounds.
6.3.4 The relation between
classes and functions
• Classes and functions determine each other, but not
in any one-to-one relation. A class item can perform
several functions. For instance, a noun or a nominal
phrase can function as the subject, object, modifier,
adverbial and complement of a sentence.
•
(a) The boys are playing football. (Subj. and Obj.)
•
(b) the Summer Palace (Modifier)
•
(c) He came here last month. (Adv.)
•
(d) He changed trains at Fengtai. (Comp.)
• Similarly, a function can be fulfilled by several
classes. For instance, the subject of a sentence
can be realized by a noun, pro-noun, numeral,
infinitive, etc.
•
(a) The dog is barking. (Nominal)
•
(b) We will stay here. (Pronoun)
•
(c) Only two-thirds of the population here are
•
workers. (Numeral)
•
(d) To run fast can be dangerous. (Verbal)
6.4 Category 范畴
• The term CATEGORY in some approaches
refers to classes and functions in its
narrow sense, e.g., noun, verb, subject,
predicate, noun phrase, verb phrase, etc.
More specifically, it refers to the defining
properties of these general units: the
categories of the noun, for example,
include
number,
gender,
case
and
countability; and of the verb, for example,
tense, aspect, voice, etc.
6.4.1 Number 数
• NUMBER is a grammatical category used
for the analysis of word classes displaying
such contrasts as singular, dual, plural, etc.
• In English, number is mainly observed in
nouns, and there are only two forms:
singular and plural, such as dog: dogs.
• Number is also reflected in the inflections
of pronouns and verbs, such as he laughs:
they laugh; this man: these men.
• In other languages, for example,
French, the manifestation of number
can also be found in adjectives and
articles.
•
(a) le cheval royal (the royal horse)
•
(b) les chevaux royaux (the royal
horses)
• Chinese doesn’t have inflection, but there
is a character that suggests the plurality
of the noun – 们. However, this character
is not used with all nouns – it’s used only
with nouns denoting human beings.
• 老师们都说今年的四级题目比去年容易。
• When there is a determiner or modifier,
usually this character is no longer needed:
通常勤奋的学生成绩会更好。
• This character is not used with animal
words and inanimate nouns:
春天来了，小鸟在歌唱，花儿在绽放。
我们把桌子和椅子重新摆一下。
6.4.2 Gender 性
• In English, nouns have natural genders. That is to
say, the gender of the word corresponds to the
natural sex of what is referred to.
• Example: actor, actress; prince, princess; hero,
heroine.
• English gender contrast can only be observed in
pronouns and a small number of nouns, and, they
are mainly of the natural gender type.
• Example：he, she, it
• In French and German, not only those nouns that
refer to people have a gender, but every noun has
a gender. That is grammatical gender. The French
language distinguishes between two genders:
feminine and masculine, while in German there are
three: feminine, masculine and neuter.
• Though there is a statistical correlation between
natural gender and grammatical gender, the
assignment may seem quite arbitrary in many
cases.
• Example: la chemise (shirt for men)
le chemisier (shirt for women)
• In French, adjectives also have their
genders, depending on the nouns they
modify.
• beau cadeau (fine gift)
• belle maison (fine house)
• Le cadeau est beau. (The gift is good.)
La maison est belle. (The house is
beautiful.)
• Also, there is the possibility that
when the gender of a noun is changed,
the meaning is changed as well:
le pendule (the pendulum),
la pendule (the clock)
• In Chinese, word gender usually
corresponds to natural gender. That
is to say, words with “女” as the
radical are usually used to refer to
women or etymologically related to
women.
• 姑，娘，嫁，娶，妈，姨，
6.4.3 Case格
• The category of case is used in the
analysis of word classes to identify
the syntactic relationship between
words in a sentence.
•
• In Latin grammar, cases are based on
variations in the morphological forms of
the word, and there are 6 cases in Latin:
• nominative case (主格), used with subjects;
• vocative ( 呼 格 ), used when addressing
someone;
• accusative (宾格), used with direct objects;
• dative (与格), used with indirect objects;
• genitive (属格), the possessive case;
• ablative (夺格), the source, agent, cause or
instrument of some action.
• There are five cases in ancient Greek
and eight in Sanskrit. Finnish has as
many as fifteen formally distinct
cases in nouns, each with its own
syntactic function.
• Nouns in English have two cases only:
general, referring to nouns in the normal
form, for example, John, teacher; genitive
or possessive, marked as ’s, for example,
John’s, the teacher’s. Personal pronouns in
English have a third case, accusative, for
example, me, him, her, us, and them.
• The English case may
reflected by other means:
also
be
– following a preposition
– word order
• as manifested in
– with : to a man
– John kicked Peter : Peter kicked John
6.4.4 Agreement / Concord
一致关系
• Agreement / Concord refers to the
requirement that two or more words
in a certain syntactic relationship
agree with each other in terms of
form. That is to say, these words
should be characterized by the same
paradigmatically marked category (or
categories).
• This syntactic relationship may be anaphoric, as
when a pronoun agrees with its antecedent.
• Whose is this pen? Oh, it's the one I lost.
• Or it may involve a relation between a head and
its dependent, as when a verb agrees with its
subject and object.
• Each person may have one coin.
• He walks. They walk.
• The features of the head noun which may
be reflected in the agreeing dependent
forms are what we have described above:
gender, number, and case. Agreement
between gender and number should be
shown in noun-adjective relation in French:
• beau cadeau (fine gift)
• belle maison (fine house)
• Le cadeau est beau. (The gift is good.)
• La maison est belle. (The house is
beautiful.)
6.5 Phrase, clause and
sentence
• Phrase refers to a group of words that are not in
a subject-predicate relationship. Traditionally, it
is seen as part of a structural hierarchy, between
clause and word. Therefore, first, a phrase must
be a group of words which form a constituent.
Second, a phrase is lower on the grammatical
hierarchy than clauses. That is to say, simple
clauses may (and usually do) contain phrases, but
simple phrases do not (in general) contain clauses.
•
•
•
•
•
•
We have different types of phrases:
the three tallest girls (nominal phrase)
has been doing (verbal phrase)
extremely difficult (adjectival phrase)
to the door (prepositional phrase)
very fast (adverbial phrase)
• However, there is a tendency to make a
distinction between WORD GROUP and PHRASE.
A word group is an extension of word of a
particular class by way of modification with its
main features of the class unchanged. Halliday
uses the term “word group” only to noun-phrases.
He calls word groups with prepositions as
“prepositional phrase” as this is usually an
exocentric construction and there is no head in it.
Actually we can have nominal group, verbal group,
adverbial group, conjunction group and preposition
group (e.g. right behind, all along).
6.5.2 Clause 小句
• Clause refers to a group of words in a
subject-predicate
relationship.
Clauses are further divided into
finite clauses and non-finite clauses,
the former with a finite verb, the
latter including the traditional
infinitive phrase, participial phrase,
and gerundial phrase.
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
(a) The best thing would be to leave early.
(b) It's great for a man to be free.
(c) Having finished their task, they came to help us.
(d) Xiao Li being away, Xiao Wang had to do the
work.
(e) Filled with shame, he left the house.
(f) All our savings gone, we started looking for jobs.
(g) It's no use crying over spilt milk.
(h) Do you mind my opening the window?
6.5.3 Sentence
• According to Bloomfield, sentence is
an independent linguistic form which
is not included in other linguistic
forms. That is to say, sentence is the
largest grammatical unit.
Structural classification
Functional classification
• Some linguists are now interested in
the communicative function of
utterances
and
label
various
sentences as “statement”, “question”,
“command”, “request”, “confirmation”,
etc.
• Based on word classes, Bolinger (1969)
reports five basic sentence types.
• Nominal + intransitive verbal: Mother fell.
• Nominal + copula + complement: Mother is
ill.
• Nominal + transitive verbal + nominal:
Mother loves the family.
• Nominal + transitive verbal + nominal +
nominal: Mother feds the baby breakfast.
• There + existential + nominal: There is a
letter.
•
•
Quirk, et al (1972) introduces seven sentence types according to the
grammatical functions of the constituents involved in a sentence.
(a) SVC C-complement, traditionally called predicative after the
link verb.
Mary is kind. Mary is a nurse.
(b) SVA A- Adverbial which is traditionally optional. Quirk discovered
that adverbial may be obligatory.
Mary is here / in the house.
In answers like “Yes, Mary is.” “Here” is elliptical and the structure is
incomplete.
(c) SV Subject + intransitive verb, e.g. The child is laughing.
(d) SVO Subject + vt. + object, e.g., Somebody caught the ball.
(e) SVOC Subject + vt. + Object + O.C. e.g.,
We have proved him wrong / him a fool.
(f) SVOA Subject + vt. + O. + adverbial
I put the plate on the table.
(g) SVOO Subject + vt. + Indirect O. + direct O.
She gives me expensive presents.
6.6 Recursiveness 递归性
• Recursiveness mainly means that a phrasal
constituent can be be dominated by
another constituent having the same
category. But today it is used more often
as a cover term to include different
important linguistic phenomena such as
coordination and subordination, conjoining
and embedding, hypotactic and paratactic.
6.6.1 Conjoining vs.
embedding 连接与嵌入
• CONJOINING refers to the process where one
clause is coordinated or conjoined with another.
The sentences made up in this way can be
understood as instances of coordination. The
conjunctions used in this case are and, but, and or.
• (a) John bought a hat and his wife bought a
handbag.
(b) You must be quick or you’ll be late.
(c) He is poor, but he is honest.
• EMBEDDING refers to the means by which one
clause is included in the sentence (main clause) in
syntactic subordination. The three basic types of
subordinate clause are complement, adjunct (or
adverbial) and relative clauses. Conjunctions like
when, where, since, if, that, who, etc. are used in
this case.
• (a) I saw the man who had visited you last year.
(relative clause)
(b) I don't know whether Professor Li needs this
book. (complement clause)
(c) If you listened to me, you wouldn't make
mistakes. (adverbial clause)
6.6.2 Hypotactic vs.
paratactic relations形合与
意合
• Hypotactic
relation
refers
to
a
construction where constituents have been
linked through the use of conjunctions.
• He bought eggs and milk.
• The man laughed when the dog barked.
• He dictated the letter and she wrote it.
• Paratactic relation refers to constructions
which are linked through juxtaposition and
punctuation or intonation, and not through
the use of conjunctions.
• He bought tea, coffee, eggs and milk.
• I think it is so.
• 他们爱祖国，爱人民，爱正义，爱和平。
• 你不让我去，我自己去。
• 明天不下雨，我一定来。
6.6.3 Recursiveness 循环，
递归
• Recursiveness, in the narrow sense,
refers to the repetition of the same
element in a sentence. For example:
• This is very, very good. (single word)
• Francis Bacon was said to be the
wisest,
brightest,
meanest
of
mankind. (grammatical function)
• Clauses can also be repeated. This recursiveness
is shown in children’s rhyme.
• This is the farmer sowing the 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.
6.7 Beyond the sentence
• The development of modern linguistic
science has helped push the study of
syntax beyond the traditional sentence
boundary. More linguists are now exploring
the syntactic relation between sentences
in a paragraph or chapter or the whole
text, which leads to the emergence of
TEXT LINGUISTICS and DISCOURSE
ANALYSIS.
6.7.1 Sentential
connection
— Hypotactic
• You can phone the doctor if you like. However, I very much
doubt whether he is in.
• We live near the sea. So we enjoy a healthy climate.
— Paratactic (coordinate clauses):
• In Guangzhou it is hot and humid during the summer. In
Beijing it is hot and dry.
• He dictated the letter. She wrote it.
• The door was open. He walked in.
6.7.2 Cohesion 衔接
• Cohesion is a concept that is used
with discourse or text instead of
syntax. It refers to relations of
meaning that exist within the text,
and
defines
it
as
a
text.
Discoursal/textual cohesiveness can
be realized by employing various
cohesive devices.
•
According to Halliday, there are five types of cohesive
device:
•
1) Reference 照应 This is mainly realized by pronouns or
the traditional demonstratives like this, that, etc.
John is 19. He is a university student.
He couldn't open the door. It was locked tight.
•
•
•
•
•
2) Substitution 替代 This is mainly realized by pro-forms.
Are you going to Xiangshan? Yes, I’m going there.
“Why don't you use your own recorder?” “I don't have
one.”
•
•
•
3) Ellipsis 省略 This goes a step further than substitution.
Do you like it? No, I don’t (like it).
Did she get there at six? No, (she got there) earlier
(than six).
•
•
4) Logical connection This is realized by adverbs or
conjunctions showing the logical connection. For example,
first, second, etc. shows the sequence; as a result shows
the consequence.
I wanted to help him. Unfortunately it was too late.
•
•
•
5) Lexical cohesion
He fell asleep. What woke him was a loud crash.
Everyone cheered. The leader acknowledged the applause.
Define the following
terms:
• syntax, co-occurence, syntagmatic relation,
paradigmatic
relation,
construction,
constituents, endocentric construction,
exocentric construction, subordination,
coordination, grammatical subject, logical
subject,
category,
agreement,
recursiveness,
embedding,
conjoining,
cohesion,
Questions:
• Use examples to illustrate different ways
to extend syntactic constituents.
• Explain the main characteristics of
subjects in English.
• Use examples to illustrate Immediate
Constituent Analysis and discuss its
advantages and disadvantages.