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Levels of Linguistic Analysis The Syntactic Level

Syntax is the level of linguistic analysis that studies how words combine to form phrases and sentences according to grammatical rules. It describes how elements like nouns, verbs, and phrases are positioned and function in a sentence. For a sentence to be valid, it must be composed of these elements in a particular order to be both grammatical and meaningful.

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Tahirullah Khan
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3K views1 page

Levels of Linguistic Analysis The Syntactic Level

Syntax is the level of linguistic analysis that studies how words combine to form phrases and sentences according to grammatical rules. It describes how elements like nouns, verbs, and phrases are positioned and function in a sentence. For a sentence to be valid, it must be composed of these elements in a particular order to be both grammatical and meaningful.

Uploaded by

Tahirullah Khan
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Levels of Linguistic Analysis: The Syntactic Level

Syntax is the level at which we study how words combine to form phrases, phrases combine to form clauses and
clauses join to make sentences. The study of syntax also involves the description of the rules of positioning of
elements in the sentence such as the nouns/noun syntax phrases, verbs/verb phrases, adverbial phrases, etc. A
sentence must be composed of these elements arranged in a particular order. Syntax also attempts to describe
how these elements function in the sentence, i.e. what is their role in the sentence. For example, the word ‘boy’
is a noun. However, in each of the following sentences, it functions in different roles:
(a) The boy likes cricket
(b) The old man loved the boy.
In sentence (a), it functions as the subject of the sentence
In sentence (b), it functions as the object.
A sentence should be both grammatical and meaningful. For example, a sentence like ‘Colourless green ideas
sleep furiously’ is grammatically correct but it is not meaningful. Thus, rules of syntax should be
comprehensive enough to explain how sentences are constructed which are both grammatical and meaningful.

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