Lesson 7 Syntax December 5, 2018
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What is Syntax?
The part of grammar that represents a speaker’s knowledge of sentences and their structures is called syntax.
The rules of syntax combine words into phrases and phrases into sentences.
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Syntactic Rules and Syntactic Functions
The rules of the syntax also specify the grammatical relations of a sentence, such as subject, object, complement etc. These grammatical relations are called syntactic functions. This information is crucial to understanding the meaning of a sentence. For example, the grammatical relations in (a) and (b) are reversed, so the otherwise identical sentences have very different meanings.
a. Your dog chased my cat. b. My cat chased your dog.
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We know from before
Syntactic rule also explain how the grouping of words relates to sentence meaning, such as when a sentence or phrase is ambiguous. In addition, the rules of syntax permit speakers to produce and understand a limitless number of sentences never produced or heard before—the creative aspect of linguistic knowledge.
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Grammar vs Meaning
We know that the structure of a sentence contributes to its meaning. However, grammaticality and meaningfulness are not the same thing, as shown by the following sentences:
Colorless green ideas sleep furiously. A verb crumpled the milk. Enormous crickets in pink socks danced at the prom. 5
Although these sentences do not make much sense, they are syntactically well formed. They sound funny, but their “funniness” is different from what we find in the following strings of words:
*Furiously sleep ideas green colorless. *Milk the crumpled verb a.
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There are also sentences that we understand even though they are not well-formed according to the rules of syntax. For example, most English speakers could interpret
*The boy quickly in the house the ball found.
although they know that the word order is incorrect.
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Some sentences are grammatical even though they are difficult to interpret because they include nonsense words, that is, words with no agreed-on meaning. This is illustrated by the following lines from the poem “Jabberwocky” by Lewis Carroll:
’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves. Did gyre and gimble in the wabe.
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ď Ž
ď Ž
ď Ž
Grammaticality also does not depend on the truth of sentences. If it did, lying would be easy to detect. Nor does it depend on whether real objects are being discussed or whether something is possible in the real world. Untrue sentences can be grammatical, sentences discussing unicorns can be grammatical, and sentences referring to pregnant fathers can be grammatical. 9
Syntactic Constituents ď Ž
The words in the sentence ď Ž
The child found a puppy.
may be grouped into [the child] and [found a puppy] corresponding to the subject and predicate of the sentence. A further division gives [the child] and then [[found] [a puppy]], and finally the individual words: [[the] [child]] [[found] [[a] [puppy]]]. 10
Constituents and Constituency Tests
The natural groupings or parts of a sentence are called constituents. Various linguistic tests reveal the constituents of a sentence. We are going to mention three frequent tests here:
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The “stand alone” test
The first test is the “stand alone” test. If a group of words can *grammatically* stand alone, for example, as an answer to a question, they form a constituent.
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Example
So in response to the question “What did you find?” a speaker might answer a puppy, but not found a. “a puppy” can stand alone while “found a” cannot. We have a clear intuition that one of these is a grammatical and a meaningful unit and the other is just a list of words.
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Substitution
Pronominals can substitute for nouns and nominals. In answer to the question “Where did you find a puppy?” a speaker can say, “I found him in the park.”
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Auxiliary verbs such as do can also take the place of the entire predicate “found a puppy” as in
“John found a puppy and Bill did too.”
If a group of words can be replaced by a pronoun or an auxiliary like do, it forms a constituent.
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“Move as a unit”
A third test of constituency is the “move as a unit” test.
If a group of words can be moved together in a sentence, they form a constituent.
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Example
For example, if we compare the following sentences to the sentence “The child found a puppy,” we see that certain elements have moved:
It was a puppy that the child found. (pseudo-cleft sentence) A puppy was found by the child. (passive)
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Test example:
We can use our tests to show that in the garden in a sentence The puppy played in the garden is a constituent, as follows:
Where did the puppy play? In the garden (stand alone) The puppy played there. (replacement by a pronominal word) In the garden is where the puppy played. (move as a unit)
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Syntactic Categories
A family of expressions that can substitute for one another without loss of grammaticality is called a syntactic category.
Syntactic categories are part of a speaker’s knowledge of syntax.
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ď Ž
That is, speakers of English know that only items (a), (b), (e), (f), and (g) in the following list are nominals (NPs or pronouns) even if they have never heard the terms before. (a) a bird (b) the red banjo (c) have a nice day (d) with a balloon (e) the woman who was laughing (f ) it (g) John (h) went 20
ď Ž
ď Ž
Syntactic categories include both phrasal categories such as NP, VP, AP (adjective phrase), PP (prepositional phrase), and AdvP (adverbial phrase) or DetP (determiner phrase), as well as lexical categories such as noun (N), verb (V), preposition (P), adjective (A), adverb (Adv), definite and indefinite article. Each lexical category has a corresponding phrasal category. 21
Syntactic Structures: Phrase vs Clause ď Ž
Phrases are combinations of grammaticaly related words which do not imply the relation of predication.
ď Ž
Unlike phrases, clauses and sentences imply the relation of predication.
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Phrases
Phrases consists of a headword, premodification and postmodification of the headword.
A smart girl In the house The house which we bought.
The headword determines the type of phrase, so there are noun phrases, verb phrases, prepositional phrases etc.
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Types of Clauses declarative, interrogative, imperative exclamatory +++++++ positive and negative clauses +++++++ nominal (subject, object) and modifying (relative, adverbial) clauses. +++++++ finite non-finite verbless
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Syntactic organization
Clauses within a sentence could be related in two ways: they could be coordinated or subordinated.
Subordination implies a superordinate (independent/main) clause and a subordinate (dependent) clause.
When I realized that he had lied, it was already too late.
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In coordination, clauses have equal status and each of them is a separate syntactic unit.
Mary dislikes when he lies but she doen’t like him telling the truth. Peter was about to cry and he left the room. Peter was about to cry while he was leaving the room.
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Syntactic coordination
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I
What is the difference between these sentences? My son, who lives in New York, is an engineer. My son who lives in Manchester is a psychologist. Politicians who tell lies are to be despised. Politicians, who tell lies, are to be despised. I had a cocktail, which was very unusual. I had a cocktail that was very unusual. I've met the man I want to marry. I've met the man that I want to marry. He stopped smoking. He stopped to smoke.
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II type of
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.
Replace the following participles with finite clauses and say which clause they are.
Looking seriously at the student, the teacher repeats the question. Crossing the street, I came across an old friend. Upset and discouraged, he gave up the idea. Who is the man talking to Elizabeth? Feeling rather tired, I telephoned and said I couldn't come. Most of the students invited did not come. John heard his name being called. The newly constructed highway is a pleasure to drive on. Having been told that the roads were blocked, he decided not to go. The lost child was crying for his mother.
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III Paraphrase each of the following sentences in two different ways to show that you understand the ambiguity involved: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.
Smoking grass can be nauseating. Dick finally decided on the boat. The professor’s appointment was shocking. The design has big squares and circles. The sheepdog is too hairy to eat. Could this be the invisible man’s hair tonic? The governor is a dirty street fighter. I cannot recommend him too highly. Terry loves his wife and so do I. They said he would go yesterday.
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IV Use syntactic tests to determine whether the strings of words given in bold below are constituents or not:
a. Martha found a lovely pillow for the couch. b. The light in this room is terrible. c. I wonder whether Bonnie has finished packing her books. d. Melissa slept in her class. e. Pete and Max are fighting over the bone. f. I gave a bone to Pete and to Max yesterday. g. I gave a bone to Pete and to Max yesterday. 31
V
Explain the ungrammaticality of the following examples:
1. John has just built a new house and so have Mary. 2. John has just built a new house and so does Mary. 3. Mary didn’t finish her new house and John didn’t neither. 4. Neither of them doesn’t have a new house. 5. The government and the Mayor has decided on the new funding plan. 6. This is John’s new house. Is this one your? 7. Whoever say something like that is wrong! 8. Where did you decide to do it and why you did it? 9. Mary asked why has John bought a new house. 10. She wondered why has that happened.
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