1. UNIVERSIDADE LUTERANA DO BRASIL
OUTLINE
CHAPTER 1
THE FIELD OF ENGLISH SYNTAX
Airan Abdalla Costa
July 10th, 2010

2. The Subject Matter of English Syntax
 Syntax
What is the syntax of a language?
Set of rules that speakers of the language follow when they combine words into
sentences.
o Natural way: each language has its pattern.
 Evidence for rules of syntax
o Martha lives in the house that John sold to her. (English native thought)
o Martha John her to sold house in lives. (Japanese native thought in their
language: Japanese – translating word by word)
Acceptability judgements ◄ Rules
 We cannot watch some wrong sentence without judge it according
to our understanding in how we learned and listened to when
child…
o What I heard before
Acceptability judgements ◄ Previous heard sentences
o Record what I heard before
Acceptability judgements ◄ Record of previously heard sentences
o How many sentences did I hear before?
[ Acceptability judgements ◄ Record of previously heard sentences ]
▲
Previously heard sentences
 Discovering the rules
o Nature of the invisible rules (pattern and so on..)
 Advice = uncountable noun
 Furniture, corn = uncountable noun
 Bean = contable
 Suggestion = contable
 Too much advice
 Too much furniture
 Too much corn
 Many armchairs

3.  English Syntax as a Subfield of Linguistics
o The Development of Modern Linguistics (19th century)
 Indo-European family: origin of languages
 Historical changes and the relationships between the languages
 Each language deserved to be described in its own terms (not
based on Greek or Latin even more)
 1950: The Generative Grammar
 System of rules unconscious hidden inside our minds
Acceptability judgements ◄ Record of previously heard sentences ◄ Innate
principles