Chapter 4 Syntax

Chapter 4 Syntax

Instructor: Liu ChengyuSchool of Foreign Languages, Sout

hwest University

Introduction to Linguistics

Contents

Introduction4.1

Word classes 4.2

The Prescriptive Approach 4.3

The Descriptive Approach4.4

Constituent Structure Grammar 4.5

Transformational Grammar 4.6

Systemic Functional Grammar 4.7

4.1 Introduction

In the previous lecture, we have studied

morphology, the structure of words. When we put

words together to form sentences, we also get a

structure. If we focus on the structure and ordering

of components within a sentence, we are studying

what is known as the syntax of a language.

Morphology

is concerned with the internal composition of a word.

Syntax

is concerned with combination of words.

meaning of a sentence

the meaning of the words of which it is composed

the structure of the sentence, such as word order.

(1) a. The hunter fears the cries of the blackbirds.

b. The blackbirds fear the cries of the hunter.

Clearly, (1a) and (1b) do not have the same

meaning.

(2) a. Jack looked up the word.

b. Jack looked the word up.

Sometimes, however, a change of word order

does not influence meaning.

(3) * Cries fear the the of hunter blackbirds the.

(The asterisk * is often used to indicate that a structure is ill-formed, or ungrammatical.)

The grammars of all languages include rules of

syntax which reflect the speaker’s knowledge of

these facts. The rules of syntax also explain the fact

that although a sequence like (3) is made up

meaningful words, it has no meaning.

Sequences of words that observe the rules of

syntax are said to be well formed or grammatical

and those which violate the syntactic rules are

therefore ill formed and ungrammatical.

a. Cries fear the the of hunter blackbirds the.

b. The hunter fears the cries of the blackbirds.

unacceptable

acceptable

What we are here concerned with is the grammatical

structure.

4.2 Word Classes

Whether a word can occupy a certain position in a

sentence depends on its grammatical category

rather than its meaning. We can replace fear and

cries by admire and speed respectively and the

sentence is still grammatical, because both have

been replaced by a word of the same category.

The categories are traditionally called parts of

speech, but now they are generally called

word classes.

Nouns Words used to refer to people, objects, creatures, places, etc.

cats

Adjectives Words that describe the thing, quality, state or action which a noun refers to.

good

Verbs Words used to refer to various actions and states involving the “things” in events.

run, be

Adverbs 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.

quickly, slowly

Prepositions words used with nouns in phrases providing information about time, place and other connections involving actions and things.

at, in, with

Pronouns words which may replace nouns or noun phrases. it, her

Conjunctions words used to connect, and indicate relationships between events and things.

and, but

Now we can put our sentence into classes.

S → art., N, V, art., N, prep., art., N.

(1) a. The hunter fears the cries of the blackbirds.

a. the very pretty girl the order “art., adv., adj., N”

b. *pretty the very girl the order “adj., art., adv., N”

acceptable

unacceptable

The rules which govern the structure of

phrases are known as phrase structure

rules or rewrite rules. Such rules allow for

the generation of grammatical sentences in a

language; they constitute a generative

grammar for that language.

4.3 The Prescriptive Approach

Some grammarians, mainly in eighteenth-century

England, lay down rules for the correct or “proper”

use of English.

(1)You must not split infinitives.

(2)You must not end a sentence with a preposition.

This view of grammar as a set of rules for the

“proper” use of a language is still to be found

today and may be best characterized as the

prescriptive approach.

It is valuable for us to be aware of the “proper”

use of the language. If it is a social expectation

that someone who writes well should obey

these prescriptive rules.

However, we should note that it does not mean

that these prescriptive rules cannot be broken.

In spoken English, for example, split infinitives

as to boldly go instead of to go boldly or boldly

to go are used sometimes.

Throughout the 20th century, linguists collect

samples of the language they are interested in

and attempt to describe the regular structures of

the language as it is used, not according to

some view of how it should be used. This is

called the descriptive approach.

4.4 The Descriptive Approach

4.4.1 Structural analysis

One type of descriptive approach is called

structural analysis. Its main objective is to

study the distribution of linguistic forms in a

language.

The method involves the use of “test-frames”.

(4) The _____ makes a lot of noise.

car, radio, child, etc. noun

All these linguistic forms fit in the same test-

frame, they are likely to belong to the same

grammatical category, i.e. noun.

Thus, we need different test-frames for these

linguistic forms, which could be like the following:

(6) ______ makes a lot of noise.

(7) I heard a ______ yesterday.

By developing a set of test-frames of this type

and discovering what forms fit the slots in the

test-frames, we can produce a description of

some aspects of the sentence structures of a

language.

4.4.2 Immediate Constituent Analysis

Another approach with the same descriptive

purposes is called immediate constituent

analysis (IC analysis). This is simply the idea

that linguistic units can be parts of larger

constructions and may themselves also be

constructions composed of smaller parts.

These constituents can in turn be further analyzed

into smaller constituents, such as noun phrases an

alyzed into an article and a noun. This process con

tinues until no further divisions are possible. The fir

st divisions or cuts are known as the immediate c

onstituents (ICs), and the final cuts as the ultimat

e constituents (UCs).

We can identify five constituents at the word

level.

(8) The man bought a car.

Noun Phrase (NP)

Verb Phrase (VP)

Why, for instance, do we class the man and

bought a car as constituents rather than man

bought and bought a? The answer is that

whether or not a sequence is a constituent is

judged by its substitutability. The technical

term used for this substitution test is

expansion.

For example, the man in (8) can be replaced by

the pronoun he. The fact that there is a

separate element to substitute for the man

shows that it is a constituent of English. No

element exists that can be substituted for

bought a or man bought a, which are not

constituents.

(8) The man bought a car.

The best way to show IC is to use a tree diagram.

The man bought

a car

Brackets can also be used but are arguably less easy to read. For example:

(9) a. [the man bought a car]

b. [[the man] [bought a car]]

c. [[[the] [man]] [[bought] [a car]]]

d. [[[the] [man]] [[bought] [[a] [car]]]]

This approach to divide the sentence up into its

immediate constituents by using binary cutting

until obtaining its ultimate constituents is called

immediate constituent analysis.

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.

old men and women old men and women

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.

4.5 Constituent Structure Grammar

A grammar which analyzes sentences using only

the idea of constituency, which reveals a hierarchy

of structural levels, is referred to as a constituent

structure grammar or constituent structure

syntax .

There are a number of ways that sentences

or strings can be cut up into constituents. T

he principles used may vary but the proces

s is usually referred to as “labelling and br

acketing”.

(10) S

NP VP

Art N V NP

Art N

The man bought a car

There an alternative analysis.

(11) S

NP V NP

Art N Art N

The man bought a car

These analyses emphasize different aspects of

structure. The first shows only binary cutting

and gives a consistent phrasal structure. The

second gives greater emphasis to the verb as

a central element in sentence structure.

For convenience and consistency, in this section,

we shall consider a constituent structure that is

called phrase structure—used in early

transformational grammar. 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

Even such a very simple set of rules allows us to produce quite a few sentences in English. We can produce sentences like:

(12) a. The man bought a car.

b. The man sold a car.

c. The woman repaired the bicycle.

We can have other rules to account for such

structures and for other types of structure. For

instance, if we change the rules to account for

adverbs (Adv) and prepositional phrases (PP),

then we can generate a larger number of

sentences.

S→NP ＋ VP ( ＋ Adv) VP→Vtr. ＋ NP NP→Art ＋ N ( ＋ PP) PP→Prep ＋ NP

Vtr. →buy, sell, etc. N→man,car, etc Art→a, the, etc. Prep→in, on, etc.

Adv→ adverbs of place etc. PP

In the above rules, the normal brackets ( ) show that the constituent is optional, the curly brackets { } show that we may choose one constituent or the other. We can now generate sentences like:

(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.

14.(14) S

NP VP Adv

Art N V NP Prep NP

Art N Art N

The boy repairs the bicycle in the house

This tree diagram means that the boy repairs the bicycle while he was in the house.

S

NP VP

Art N V NP

Art N PP

Prep NP

Art N

The boy repairs the bicycle in the house

This tree diagram means that the boy repairs the bicycle which is in the house.(15)

The rules introducing prepositional phrases

also introduce the important concept of

recursion.

(16) This is the house that Jack built.

This is the cat that lived in the house that Jack built.

This is the dog that chased the cat that lived in the

house that Jack built.

…

There are a number of features of language that

constituent structure analysis may not be able to

account for. We shall consider two.

1 Elements in a construction can be

discontinuous.

2 What is the relationship between sentences

that seem to be closely connected.

a. The boy cleaned the room up. b. The student looked the word up in the dictionary.

In both of these sentences the particle up is closely linked to the verb but is not immediately adjacent to it. Such relationships are not clearly or easily shown in constituent structure tree diagrams because their positions are discontinuous.

1

a. Brian hit George.

b. George was hit by Brian.

The two sentences seem to be structurally and semantically related but constituent structure analyses do not account for this.

Chomsky proposed a transformational grammar to account for these relationships amongst many others.

2

4.6 Transformational Grammar

The “grammar” in transformational grammar

should be understood in the broadest sense.

It is a theory of grammar including phonology

and semantics. Syntax is its core component

as it has been developed by Chomsky. It

provides the generative power of the model.

In the earliest version of transformational

grammar, Chomsky put forward a model which

consisted of three parts:

(1) phrase structure rules

(2) transformation rules

(3) morphophonemic rules.

Differences

phrase structure grammar

emphasizing the generation of sentences; context free

constituent analysis

aiming at discovering the structures

Original phrase structure rules : S→NP ＋ VP.

Chomsky then introduced the idea of a set of tr

ansformation rules which could transform these

simple “kernel” sentences into a number of relat

ed sentences.

The original formulation of the passive transformation was as follows:

(17) NP1 ＋ Aux ＋ V ＋ NP2

↓

NP2 ＋ Aux ＋ be ＋ en ＋ V ＋ by ＋ NP1

a. The boy has repaired the bicycle.

b. The bicycle has been repaired by the boy.

Using the idea of transformations, Chomsky

argued that he could show a number of

systematic relationships between sentences that

could not be accounted for by simple phrase

structure grammars.

The morphophonemic rules would apply to the

output of the transformational rules. For example,

these rules might give the correct past tense form

of a verb and its pronunciation. e.g. turning “be +

en + V” in the rule into “has been repaired”.

This model was later developed into what is

usually called the standard theory of

transformational grammar. Chomsky also put

forward the idea of two levels of syntactic

structure:

(1) deep structure

(2) surface structure

The Standard Theory

Base Component

Categorial Sub-component Lexical Sub-component

Phrase Structural Rules Lexicon + Rules

DEEP STRUCTURE → To Semantics

Transformational Component

SURFACE STRUCTURE → To Phonology

The meaning of a sentence is interpreted from

its deep structure. The deep structure

undergoes a process of transformation to

produce a surface structure. The surface

structure is given a phonological interpretation.

In this way, transformational grammar is held to

relate sound to meaning. The central generative

part of the model is the base syntactic

component.

The standard theory

↓ The extended standard theory

↓ The revised extended standard theory

↓ The theory of government-binding (GB)

↓ The Minimalist Program (MP)

4.7 The Systemic Functional Grammar

Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG) has its r

oots in the work of the British linguist J. R. Firth,

although it also owns much to Prague School li

nguistics and to the work of Hjelmslev and Who

rf. However, the master mind behind the syste

mic-functional perspective is M. A. K. Halliday.

Differences

Transformational Grammar

emphasizing structure of language; context free

SFG

emphasizing language function and context

M. A. K. Halliday’s three metafunctions:

(i) ideational function

(ii) textual function

(iii) interpersonal function

(i) Ideational Function

The metafunction in which we conceptual

ize the world for our own benefit and that

of others is called ideational function.

(19) The boy kicked the post.

the actor the goal

(19) The post was kicked by the boy.

the actorthe goal

material process: running, dressing, climbing, etc.

(20) The man liked the new house.

the sensor the phenomenon

mental process: hate, love, know, etc.

(21) The child is homeless.

carrier attribute

relational process: be, become, appear, etc.

(22) The girl laughed.

The behaver

(23) The visitor said “hello”.

The sayer The target

Verbal process: say, report, etc.

(24) There is a girl over there.

The existent attribute

existential process: there be.

(ii) Interpersonal Function

Language serves to set up and maintain social

and personal relations, including communication

roles such as questioner and respondent, and to

express the language user’s own attitudes and

comments on the content of an utterance. This

function of language is called interpersonal

function.

Verbal communication: addresser vs. addressee

Classifications of sentences: declarative, interrogative, and imperative.

declarative give information the function of statements

interrogative request something

the function of questions

imperative give instructions the function of commands

Mood : please, possibly, kindly, frankly, etc.

Exchange 1

demands for, and offers of, goods and services of some kind, for example Give me a biscuit.

Exchange 2

demands for, and offers of, linguistic information, for example, What is he giving her?

Examining the interpersonal dimension of syntax

means looking closely at the relation between the

form and function of utterances. As we have seen,

sentences might have the form of declaratives,

interrogatives or imperatives, but function quite

differently.

(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?

What we can observe here is the element of politeness and deference increasing with each permutation of pass the salt.

(iii) Textual function

Language also makes links with itself and with

features of the situation in which it is used. This

is what enables the speaker or writer to

construct a text, and enables the listener or

reader to distinguish a text from a random set of

sentences. This function of language is called

textual function.

There is a bird on the tree.

empty subject new information

the starting point of clause given information

the end point of clause new information

Processes involving ellipsis, for example, in which we leave out constituents of the clause, enable us to abbreviate and simplify our utterances while keeping the message recoverable. For example, (28a) is clearly less cumbersome than (28b):

(28) a. James enjoys tennis more than John.

b. James enjoys tennis more than John enjoys tennis.

Similarly the requirement to make our messages clear means that we normally, that is, in unmarked clauses, try to ensure that items which are semantically close are syntactically close. Thus, (29a) is more marked in structure than (29b) because of the separation of the clause when we were due to leave from the noun phrase, the day, which it post-modifies.

(29) a. The day came at last when we were due to leave.

b. The day when we were due to leave came at last.

What we have really been considering here a

re the thematic relations of the clause. The

theme is the first constituent, and it denotes t

he starting point of the. The rest of the clause

is called rheme, the information that is new.

(30) a. Gas explosion killed thousands.

b. Thousands were killed by gas explosion.

Unmarked Theme Rheme

Marked Theme: new information

Rheme

Exercise 1 Analysis

Analyze the sentence below with a tree diagram:

Flying planes can be dangerous.

a.

S NP VP Flying planes can be dangerous.

b. S

S’ VP NP VP(Someone) flying planes can be dangerous.

F

F

T

Syntax is a subfield of linguistics that studies the sentence structure of language, including the combination of morphemes into words.

Grammatical sentences are formed following a set of syntactic rules.

Sentences are composed of sequence of words arranged in a simple linear order, with one adding onto another following a simple arithmetic logic.

Exercise 2 T or F

That’s all for Chapter 4.

Thank you.