Syntax

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វិ �ទ្យា�ស្ថា� នសហប្រ�តិ �តិ� ការអន�រជាតិ កម្ពុ��ជាCambodia International Cooperation InstituteFaculty of Arts, Humanities and Languages

Applied Linguistics

Submitted by: Group III1.Miss. Chean Loemhun2.Miss. Ross Socheat3.Miss. Ly Bunna4.Miss. Toum MuyEng 5.Miss. Yim Sina 6. Mr. Pouk sary7. Mr. Phat Utdom

Lecturer Kak Sovanna

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contents

SyntaxGenerative GrammarSyntactic structuresDeep and surface structure Structural ambiguityRecursion

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Symbols used in syntactic descriptionTree DiagramsPhrase structure rulesLexical rulesBack to recursionComplement phrases Transformational rules

Group 03 6/21/2015 3

04/15/2023Group 3 4

SYNTAX

In linguistics , syntax is the set of rule , principle , and process that govern the structure of sentences in a give language. The term of syntax is also used to refer to the study of such principle and process. The goal of many syntacticians is to discover the syntax rule common to all language and in literal means “ a putting together or arrangement ”

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Generative Grammar

Linguists have attempted to produce a particular type

of grammar that have a very explicit system of rules

specifying what combinations of basic elements

would result in well-formed sentences. This very

explicit system of rules . it was proposed , would

have a lot on common with the types of rules found

in mathematics .6/21/2015

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In basic algebra , if we have an expression such as 3x + 2y , and we give x and y the value of any whole number , then that simple algebraic expression can “ generate “ and endless set of values by following the simple rules of arithmetic. When x = 5 and y = 10 , the result is 35. When x = 2 and y = 1, the result is 8 . these results will follow directly and predictably from applying the explicit rules.

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Syntactic structures

A generative grammar defines the syntactic structures

of a language . the grammar will generate all well-

formed syntactic structures ( e.g. sentence ) of the

language and will not generate any ill-formed

structures.

The grammar will have a finite ( i.e. limited ) number

of rules , 6/21/2015

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be will be capable of generating an infinite number of well-formed structures.

The grammar should also be capable of revealing the basis of two other phenomena : first, how some superficially different sentences are closely related and , second , have some superficially similar sentences are in fact different.

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Deep and surface structure

The distinction between them is a different in their

surface structure , that is the different syntactic forms

they have as individual English sentences .

This superficial different in form disguises the fact that

the two sentences are very closely related, even

identical at some less superficial level.

.

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This other “ underlying “ level, where the basic components ( noun phrase + verb + noun phrase ) shared by the two sentences can be represented , is called their deep structure.

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Structural ambiguity

These two different versions of events can actually be

expressed in the same surface structure forms : Annie

whacked a man with an umbrella.

This sentences provides an example of structural

ambiguity. It have two distinct underling

interpretations that have to be represented differently in

deep structure. 6/21/2015

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Part of the underlying structure would be

something like : ‘I shot an elephant ( which was )

in my pyjamas.

There are two different underlying structures

with the same surface structure .

The grammar will have to be capable of showing

the structural distinction between these

underlying representations6/21/2015

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Recursion

The rules of grammar will also need the crucial

property of recursion.

Using different words ( near the window ) , for as long

as the sentence still make sense ( in the bedroom ) .

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• Recursion (‘repeatable any number of times’) rules have the

capacity to be applied more than once in generating a structure.

• For example, we can have one prepositional phrase describing

location (on the table) in the sentence The gun was on the table.

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• We can also repeat this type of phrase, using different words (near

the window), for as long a the sentence still makes sense (in the

bedroom).

• So, in order to generate a sentence such as The gun was on the

table near the window in the bedroom, we must be able to repeat

the rule that creates a prepositional phrase over and over again.

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In principle , there is no end to the recursion that

would produce ever longer versions of complex

sentences with this structure .

We should note that recursion of this type is not

only a feature of grammar. But can also be an

essential part of a theory of cosmic structure , as

in the role of turtles in one little old lady’s view

of the universe.6/21/2015

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• We must also be able to put sentences inside other sentences.

• For example, when we produce a sentence such as Cathy knew

that Mary helped George, we do so with the sentence Mary

helped Gorge inside it.

• Those two sentences can be generated inside another sentence

such as

Jonh belived that Cathy knew that Mary helped Gorge.

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Symbols Used In Syntactic Description

The way in which syntactic analysis is presented.Some symbols in previous sections as abbreviations for syntactic

categories:

‘S’ (= sentence)

‘NP’ (= noun phrase)

‘N’ (= noun)

‘Art’ (= article)

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There are three more symbols that are commonly used in syntactic description.

The first is in the form of an arrow. It can be interpreted as ‘consist of ‘ or ‘rewrite as’. NP Art N

This is simply a shorthand way of saying that a noun phrase (NP) such as the dog consist of or rewrite as ( ) an article the and a noun (N) dog.

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The second symbol is a pair of round brackets ( ).

Whatever occurs inside these round brackets will be treated as an

optional constituent.

For example, we can describe an object as the dog or the small dog.

We can say that both the dog and the small dog are the examples of

the category noun phrase (NP).

We can include an adjective (Adj) such as small6/21/2015

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The third symbol is in the form of curly brackets{}

These indicate that only one of the elements enclosed within the curly brackets must be selected.

There is only a choice from two or more constituents.

A noun phrase can consist an expression such the dog (article plus noun), or it (pronoun), or Cathy (proper noun). We can choose one among these, if we use curly brackets.

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The list of symbolsS sentence

N noun

V verb

Art article

NP noun phrase

VP verb phrase

Adj adjective

Pro pronoun

PN proper noun

Adv adverb

Prep preposition

PP prepositional phrase

* ‘ungrammatical sentence’

‘consists of’ or ‘rewrite as’

( ) ‘optional constituent’

{ } ‘one and only one of these constituents must be selected’

and abbreviations

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Three separate rules

NP Art NNP ProNP PN

NP Art N, Pro ,PN

Art N NP Pro

PN

It’s important to remember that, although there are three constituents inside these curly brackets, only one of them can be selected on any occasion.

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Tree Diagrams

It’s the way to describe the structure of sentences to create a more explicit representation of the hierarchical organization of one structure

NPArt N[The] [girl]

NPArt N

The girl

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Tree Diagram with the whole sentence

S

NP VP

Art N V NP

Art N

The girl saw a dog

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Phrase Structure Rule

Phrase structure rules are a type of rewrite rule used to describe a

given language's syntax.

P(hrase) S(tructures) comprise

1. CATEGORIES (NP, VP, AP, maybe PP) and

2. their CONSTITUENTS.

For example,

- The book that I have is an NP of which the book and that I have are

constituents, but not *book that or *that I. 6/21/2015

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Phrase structure rules are usually of the following form:

It means that the constituent A is separated into the two sub constituents B and C.

An S (sentence) consists of an NP (noun phrase) followed by a VP (verb phrase

A noun phrase consists of an optional Det (determiner) followed by an N (noun).

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The purpose of PS-rules:

- 1. to represent formally the relationships of the

miminal meaningful elements of phrases

- 2. in hopes of discovering

a. the mental operations involved in

uttering sentences and

b. the relation between formal and

semantic structures. 6/21/2015

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Lexical rules

we can rely on these rules to generate the grammatical sentences 1 – 7 below.

1. The girl followed the boy

2. A boy helped the dog.

3. You saw it yesterday.

4. Mary helped George recently.

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5. George saw a dog .

6. A small dog followed Mary.

7. The small boy saw George with a crazy dog recently .

8. You it saw .

9. Mary helped boy.

10.Followed the dog

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Lexical rules (2) A lexical rule is in a form of syntactic rule used within

many theories of natural language syntax We can draw the tree diagram for sentence:

PN

Art Adj N

the small` boy saw George with a crazy dog recently

S

NP VP

Art Adj N V NP PP Adv

Prep NP

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Back to recursionThe simple set of phrase structure rules listed earlier have no

recursive element.

We start to create an S , we only create a single S ( sentence

structure ).

in these sentence , two new proper nouns and two new verbs

have been used. We have to expand our earlier set of lexical rules

to include PN ( Cathy , John ) and V ( believed , knew ).

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Complement phrases

The role of that as a complementizer is to introduce a

complement phrase (CP). We can identify one CP which

contains that plus Mary helped George. We already

know that Mary helped George is a sentence (S).

We can also see from the same sentence that the

complement phrase (CP) comes after a verb (V) knew.

This means that we are using the CP as part of a verb

phrase (VP) , as in knew that.6/21/2015

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Mary helped George. So, there must be another rule

that says : “ a verb phrase rewrites as a verb and

complement phrase “ , or VP V CP.

If we now look at these two new rules in conjunction

with an earlier rule , we can see how recursion is

built into the grammar.

S NP VP

VP V CP

CP C S

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Transformational rules What is Transformational rule??

Transformational rule is rule that allows a structure of sentence to be transformed to another structure.

These underlying structures is that they will always generate sentences with a fixed word order

We use the symbol to indicate that a transformational rule is being used to derive a new structure from the basic structure .

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We can think of the adverb recently as having been ‘ moved ’ to the beginning of the second sentence . In order to make this possible in the grammar, we need other rules that will change or move constituents in the structures derived from the phrase structure rules.

SS

NP VP Adv NP VP

V NP AdjV NP

Mary saw George recently Recently Mary saw George

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We also use a transformational rule to derive English question structures of the type illustrated in the second sentence below :

You will help Cathy .

Will you help Cathy ?

S S

NP Aux VP Aux NP VP

V NP V NP

Pro PN Pro PN

you will help Cathy Will you help Cathy 6/21/2015

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There are many more rules and concepts in the

analysis of syntax. However , having explored some of

the basic issues and methods of syntactic analysis in

order to talk about ‘ structure ‘ in language , we must

move on to consider how we might incorporate the

analysis of ‘ in the study of language .

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The endThanks you for

attention

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