WHAT IS SYNTAX?
Syntax.- the part of
linguistics that studies
sentence structure.
EXAMPLES:
Word order:
I want these books.
*want these I books.
Agreement – subject and verb, determiner and
noun, . . . often must agree:
He wants this book.
*He want this book.
I want these books.
*I want this books.
How many complements, which prepositions and forms
(cases):
I give Mary a book.
*I see Mary a book.
I see her.
*I see she.
Hierarchical structure – what modifies what
We need more (intelligent leaders).(more
of intelligent leaders)
We need (more intelligent) leaders.
(leaders that are more intelligent)
Syntax
Can combine with an auxiliary;
Will go, have seen, should run, must leave, is
swimming.
Can be modified an adverb:
Usually sleep, read carefully.
Semantics: usually describes an action, a
process or a state of being.
But: problems with some verbs.
But: hard to distinguish from nouns
describing actions ( a thump)
Summary of open classes
Typical Morphology Typical Syntax Typical Semantics
Noun Plural Adj. Thing, person, place
House – houses The big house
Verb Tenses ……. Combines with an aux. Action
Walk – walked Would walk
Adjective Comparative superlative D N Quality, property
Big – bigger – biggest The big house
Adverb Often has –ly suffix Modifies V, Adj, Adv. Manner, degree..
Really, but: well A really big house
Closed Classes
Determiners (Det.)
Articles (a, an, the) quantifiers (many, any, all, several) possessives (my,
your, his, her)
Syntax; come before nouns: (Adj.) N
Auxiliary verbs (Aux.)
Will, may, must, shall, would, can, have
Syntax:
Is followed by a verb: V
It will rain. You must be quiet.
Is negated directly: not
He cannot swim. She would not come.
He doesn’t can swim. She doesn’t would come.
Normal verbs vs Auxiliary Verbs
Verbs Auxiliary verbs
Negation Needs aux do Directly
I don’t want it I don’t will come.
I want not it. I will not come.
Question Needs aux do Inversion
Do you know it? Do you will come?
Know you it? Will you come?
Agreement Yes No
He knows it. He wills come.
He know it. He will come.
Be, have and do are sometimes normal verbs and sometimes auxiliary verbs.
I don’t have it. & I have not seen it.
Words belonging to more than one lexical category
Some words belong to several categories
They have several meanings:
She talks very much. She is giving three talks.
It’s cold. I got a cold.
They have completely different meanings:
I can’t bear the noise. There is a bear in the wood.
Tree barks. The dog barks.
Words belonging to more than one lexical category
Some words belong to several categories:
They have similar meaning:
She talks very much vs. She is giving three talks.
It’s cold vs. I got a cold.
They have completely different meanings:
I can’t bear the noise. Vs. There is a bear in the wood.
Tree barks vs. The dog barks.
Virtually all English nouns can be turned into verbs.
Phrases, Constituents & Phrase Structure Rules
Describing Nouns Phrases
In English, a noun phrase a determiner followed by a
noun, or determiner followed by an adjective
followed by a noun, or a single noun.
To save words, we can use the so called Phrase
Structure Rules capture this:
NP – Det N the cat
1 NP – Det A N those noisy cats
NP – N cats
NP – A N noisy cats
We can mark optional subphrases with parentheses and save even more
words:
(2) NP (Det) (A) N cats, noisy cats, the cat, those noisy cats.
A phrase structure rule tell us two things:
Which smaller phrases (Det, A, N) use to build a bigger phrase (NP).
How to order the smaller phrases – the rule (2) allows
noisy cats, but not cats noisy.
NP
Det A N
(3) those noisy cats
In addition, a pronoun can be a noun phrase:
(4) NP Pron she, you, ……..
Describing Prepositional phrases
In English, prepostion is usually followed by a noun phrase (let’s ignore the
prepositions at the end of sentence).
(5) PP P NP about those noisy cats
Now we can put that together and say things like;
PP
NP
(6) P Det A N
about those noisy cats
Describing Sentences
In English, a sentence consists of a subject (usually a noun phrase) followed
by a verb which is sometimes followed by an object (another noun phrase),
prepositional phrase etc.
(7) a. Alphons slept. Subject + V
b. Alphons saw his dog. Subject + V + Object
c. Alphons asked for a beer.
d. Alphons begged beer from his dog.
(8) a. S NP V Alphons slept
b. S NP V NP Alphons saw his dog.
c. S NP V PP Alphons asked for a beer.
d. S NP V NP PP Alphons asked his dog for a beer.
We can abbreviate these rules as:
Of course, we ignored many other sentences like:
S NP V NP NP Alphons offered his dog some beer.
S NP V PP PP Alphons argued with his dog about beer.
S NP V NP Alphons persuaded his dog to buy some beer.
S NP V NP that S Alphons persuaded his dog that it would be wise to
bring beer.
Linguistics often distinguish between sentences and verb phrases (VP). A verb
phrase is a sentence without a subject (e.g. saw his dog). Then you have to
describe sentences in two steps: First, S NP VP and then VP V (NP) (PP).
(9) S NP V (NP) (PP)
This rule says: Sentences is a noun phrase followed by a verb and possibly some
other noun phrase and/or prepositional phrase. For example:
S
NP V NP
(10) Alphons saw his dog
Phrase structure tree
Phrases are created from other phrases or words.
Sentences is the biggest pfrase.
We can depict the fact that a sentence is built from smaller parts by a diagram:
(11)
S
NP V NP
Det Adj N Det N
The little boy chases his dog
