9. ❏ The term ‘syntax’ is from the Ancient Greek syntaxis, a verbal noun which literally
means ‘arrangement’ or ‘setting out together’.
❏ Traditionally, it refers to the branch of grammar dealing with the ways in which
words, with or without appropriate inflections, are arranged to show connection of
meaning within the sentence.
❏ E.g.: in ‘It tastes nice’, there are connection of meaning among it tastes and nice
which are shown by the order of words (it + tastes + nice, not nice + tastes + it, or
other permutations), and also, in part by inflectional agreement between the verb
and pronoun (it tastes, not it taste).
10. PHRASE STRUCTURE RULES
These rules state the structure of a phrase of
a specific type will consist of one or more
constituents in a particular order.
1. A sentence (S) rewrites as a noun phrase
(NP) and a verb phrase (VP).
2. A noun phrase rewrites as either an article
plus an optional adjective plus a noun,
or a pronoun, or a proper noun)
3. A verb phrase rewrites as a verb plus a
11. noun phrase.
LEXICAL RULES
To specify which words can be used when we
rewrite constituents such as PN (proper
noun).
Proper noun ➞{John, Mary}
Noun ➞ {girl, dog, boy} Verb ➞ {followed,
helped, saw} Article ➞ {a, the}
Adjective ➞ {big, small}
Pronoun ➞ {it, you}
14. PHRASES
❏ In English nouns usually follow by a certain set of words (determiner).
Determiner: the, this, these, all, some, six, etc.
❏ Nouns can also also be introduced by more than one determiner—the six houses, all
eight dogs, a few people—and these elements must also occur in a particular order.
❏ E.g.:
- A proper names usually occur without determiners:
Mary walked in the door. (proper name)
*The Mary walked in the door.
- Some proper nouns do take determiners:
The Chunnel is an amazing innovation.
The New York Mets played a game yesterday.
16. PHRASE STRUCTURE RULE FOR NOUN PHRASES
● Nouns can be expressed by phrase structure rules for the larger syntactic unit, the
noun phrase, or NP.
● The syntactic structure is divided into phrases that each phrase must have a head.
N is the head of NP, a phrase that can also include D. Both D and N are
constituents of NP.
Heads combine with other elements to make up phrases. (All the elements
that combine to form a phrase are called constituents.)
Structure rule NP → (D) N.
18. ❏ Morphologically, verbs in English: infinitive, present tense, past tense, present participle, and
past participle.
❏ Syntactically, verbs can be divided into three groups:
a. Auxiliary : have, be
b. Main Verbs : feel, go, eat, run, hope
c. Modal : may, might, shall, should, will, would, can, could, must ❏ The following
sentences illustrate the various combinations of the main verb ‘read’ . Scarlett should
have been reading under the umbrella.
Scarlett should be reading under the umbrella.
❏ A main verb, the verb phrase can include as many as three other verbs. These options include a
modal (which, if present, must come first) and as many as two auxiliary verbs, forms of have
or be. E.g.: modal + have + be + main verb might have been sleeping
modal + have + main verb might have slept
19.
20.
21. A PHRASE STRUCTURE RULE FOR VERB PHRASES
● Main verb is the head of the verb phrase (VP).
● The elements that precede the main verb are functional categories, namely,
auxiliary verbs and modals.
VP → (Aux) V
Aux → modal, have, be
Auxiliary verbs and modals,
typically occur before the
negative adverb not.
have/be/modal + not
Joachim is not playing a
game of chess.
Main verbs can’t occur in this
position:
*Joachim played not a game
of chess.
EVIDENCE FOR THE AUX
POSITION
Aux verbs appear in yes/no
questions.
Has Joachim played an
excellent game of chess?
Aux verbs can occur in tag
questions.
Joachim can’t play chess,
can he?
Main verbs cannot occur in
tag questions.
*Joachim played an excellent
game of chess, playedn’t he?
SUBJECT-AUXILIARY
INVERSION
22. To perform subject- auxiliary
inversion, negation, and tag
question formation, insert do
in Aux if Aux is otherwise
empty.
- Joachim didn’t play a game
of chess.
- Does Minerva sing the
aria? - Joachim played a
game of chess, didn’t he?
ENGLISH DO INSERTION
23. Sometimes inserted in
sentences for other reasons. For example, in
sentences that lack an auxiliary or modal. - But I did
clean my room. - Did I do my homework? (SAI) - They
didn’t do a good job on the project. (negation)
- You do the dishes every night, don’t you? (tag
question
formation)
EMPHATIC AND MAIN VERB DO
24. A PHRASE STRUCTURE RULES FOR
CLAUSES CL → NP
Aux VP
Using these rules, we
draw the following
simple tree diagrams:
27. ❏ Prenominal position : the position before a noun in a noun phrase. E.g.
The enormous hog
❏ Postnominal position : right after the noun in a noun phrase. E.g.
Something wicked
❏ Predicate position : occur following linking verbs (remain, appear, become, be,
and “sense” verbs such as feel, taste, look, smell, and sound.
E.g. The hog became enormous.
Can be concluded:
NP → (Det) (AP) N (AP)
VP → (Aux) V (AP)
28.
29.
30. A VARIABLE PHRASE
We can use a variable, X, to stand for any category (so XP can be NP, VP, AP, etc.).
VP → V (XP)
XP = a phrase of any category (NP, AP, etc.)
C
31. ADVERBS AND ADVERB PHRASES
❏ Adverbs modify verbs end in -ly, such as quickly, happily, enormously, and so on.
❏ Some adjectives end in –ly too: friendly, lovely, manly.
❏ Here is a short list of adverbs, including many that do not end in -ly: still, never,
often, fast, usually, just, perhaps, even, fortunately, once, twice, also, forcibly,
sometimes
❏ Certain adverb phrases (AdvP), like adjective phrases, can be modified by degree
words (Deg). E.g. very dejectedly, so slowly, awfully happily.
❏ Other adverbs can’t be modified by degree words: *very once, *so sometimes,
*awfully yet.
A phrase structure rule for adverb phrases in which the
degree word modifier is optional:
AdvP → (Deg) Adv
32.
33.
34. ADVERB PHRASE POSITIONS
● Most adverb phrases can occur at the beginning, at the end of the sentence, and
in internal positions of the sentence.
● E.g. Happily/luckily/still, the beagles like their dog food.
The beagles happily/luckily/still like their dog food.
The beagles like their dog food happily/luckily/still.
D.
35. PREPOSITIONS AND PREPOSITIONAL PHRASES
❏ Syntactically, prepositions (P) are typically followed by NP objects:
in/on/under/over/around/above the rocks
P + NP
❏ Some prepositions, like adverbs and adjectives, can be modified by degree words
(right/straight/clear).
E.g. She ran right/straight/clear into/on/under/over/around/above the rock.
❏ Prepositions can also be followed by VP and by another prepositional phrase (PP):
You should never eat before going on a run.
P +VP
You can see wildflowers growing over under a tree.
P +PP
Phrase structure rule
PP → (Deg) P (XP)
XP : a phrase of any category
36.
37.
38. Here are some tree diagrams of Prepositional Phrase (PP):
PREPOSITIONAL PHRASE POSITIONS
Prepositional phrases can occur in a number of different positions in the clause.
❖ After verbs in a VP:
She [slept [under the stars]]. VP PP
❖ PP is in NP, as a modifier of N. She chose
[the kitten [with white paws]]. NP PP
39.
40. Since the rule for NP doesn’t include PP as modifiers, the original rule,
which is NP → (Det) (AP) N (AP), should be revised to NP → (Det) (AP) N
(XP).
42. SYNTACTIC RULES
A. HIERARCHICAL STRUCTURE AND AMBIGUITY
The tree diagrams illustrate hierarchical
structure; one phrase dominates another.
43. AMBIGUITY
E.g. Templeton is a rat.
it has more than one meaning. Templeton
can be either a furry rodent or an unsavory
person. This kind of ambiguity is called
lexical ambiguity: a sentence is ambiguous
because a word—here, the noun rat—has
more than one meaning.
RECURSION
The grammatical property of unlimited
extension of phrases.
45. ❏ Syntactic ambiguity cannot all be elaborated in terms of hierarchical structure. The
sentence “The crab is too hot to eat.” is ambiguous because it has two meanings.
❏ Syntactically, the ambiguity is caused by the subject of eat and the complement (phrase
that combines with a head to form a larger phrase) of eat are not clear. This proves that
silent syntax (unpronounced yet understood syntactic material in sentences) does
exist.
❏ To make the sentence clear we must assume that there is an unpronounced subject and
complement of the verb eat. The two unpronounced NPs are represented by ∆. The
crab is too hot [∆ to eat ∆].
The crab is too hot (for someone) to eat (the crab).
The crab is too hot (for the crab) to eat (something).
47. ❖ SUBSTITUTION
- Substitution is a process by which we
replace a phrase with a pronoun (or
other proform).
- E.g. In the sentence “That mouse ran
under the bed”, the NP “That mouse”
can be replaced by the pronoun it.
- This also proves that pronouns cannot
replace nouns. Since if it
could, the sentence would be “That it
ran under the bed” and not “It ran
under the bed”.
❖ PRONOUN AMBIGUITY
The sentence “The cat chased the rat with a
knife.” has two possible meanings. With
pronoun substitution, the two meanings
can be clearly seen. The first is “the cat
chased him.” and the second is “the cat
chased him with a knife.”
49. that is the relationship between a
pronoun and its antecedent (a phrase
to which a proform refers).
- There are two types of antecedent: 1. a
linguistic antecedent (can be found in
another sentence).
A student came in, and she sat down. 2.
a pragmatic antecedent (implied by
the context).
Two children are watching a third child
race down the street on a bike.
Child A: Look at him go!
Child B: Wow! He’s going really fast!
❖ CONJUNCTIONS AND COORDINATION -
Coordination is a process of joining phrases
(usually of the same category) by using a
conjunction. Parallelism is what we call the
same-category requirement.
- Example of coordination is the sentence
“Amelia won’t or can’t play soccer.” (Aux
+ Aux).
50.
51.
52. ❖ COORDINATION AND AMBIGUITY
Coordination can also provides evidence for ambiguity. This is true for the sentence
“We ate chocolate-flavored grasshoppers and flies.”. By using tree diagrams, we can see
that the AP chocolate-covered modifies only the N grasshoppers, or it modifies both
grasshoppers and flies.
D.
53. MOVEMENT AND DELETION
Consider the following sentences:
- Lorraine has emptied the garbage.
- Has Lorraine emptied the garbage?
This pair of sentences illustrates the operation of subject-auxiliary inversion (SAI).
- The auxiliary verb moved from its basic position (to the right of the subject NP Lorraine)
to sentence-initial position (to the left of the subject NP).
- The relationship between the first sentence and the second: we actually derive the
second one from the first by movement—in this case, by SAI.
DEEP
AND
54. SURFACE STRUCTURE
Chomsky proposed that the base order of the sentence is the deep structure and that
derived orders (derived by the application of movement rules such as SAI) are surface
structures. ❖ Verb Phrase Deletion
Consider the following sentences:
- Alfie is riding his motorcycle across the desert, and Ziggy is ∆, too. -
Sally said she would get a llama, and she did ∆.
In each of these examples, the ∆ is (unambiguously) interpreted as identical to
another constituent in the sentence:
- Alfie is riding his motorcycle across the desert, and Ziggy is ∆, too.
(∆ = riding his motorcycle across the desert)
- Sally said she would get a llama, and she did ∆.
(∆ = get a llama)
The missing constituent in each case is a VP. VP deletion involves deleting a VP when
it is identical to another VP somewhere close by, not necessarily in the same
sentence.
56. It is similar with VP deletion , however, in deleting some element (here, a verb) when it
is identical to another element in the preceding discourse.
E.g. Ziggy bought a Harley, and Alfie bought a Yamaha.
Ziggy bought a Harley, and Alfie ∆ a Yamaha.
Δ = bought
❖ Constraints on Deletion
- VP deletion can operate in either a subordinate clause (introduced here by even though) or
a coordinate clause (preceded by and):
E.g. Violet will stay out late tonight even though she shouldn’t ∆.
subordinate clause
Violet will stay out late tonight, and she shouldn’t ∆.
coordinate clause
- The deleted VP can also precede its antecedent, as in the following
sentence: Even though she shouldn’t ∆, Violet will stay out late tonight.
deleted VP antecedent
❖
57. Reordering Phrases: Movement
The active sentence is therefore the deep structure, and the passive, a possible surface
structure, is derived by the application of a rule that moves Beowulf to the end of the
sentence and Grendel to the subject position. We’ll call this rule passive.
Deep structure Beowulf killed Grendel.
↓
Application of rule Passive
↓
Surface structure Grendel was killed by Beowulf.
❖ Constraints on Movement
On movement rules., passive can apply only in clauses with certain verbs.
For example:
The child met an adult. An adult was met by the child.
The girls discussed old friends. Old friends were discussed by the girls.
58.
59.
60. ❖ Wh-Movement
Wh-movement can be described as operating in two steps:
1. A noun phrase is replaced by an interrogative wh-phrase (who, what, when, where,
how, why) or a wh-phrase (which car, how many teeth, what in the world, etc.).
2. The phrase is fronted to clause-initial position. (Wh-movement also sometimes
involves subject auxiliary inversion, as in the example here.)
BIBLIOGRAPHIC REFERENCES
- Denham, K. E., &
Lobeck, A. C. 2013.
Linguistics for
everyone: an
introduction. 2nd ed.
Boston: Wadsworth
Cengage Learning.
61. - Yule, G. 2020. The Study of Language. 7th ed. United Kingdom: Cambridge
University Press.
THANKS!
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