LinguisticEnglish syntax

INTRODUCING ENGLISH LINGUISTIC(MEYER)

INSTRUCTOR :DR. FATEMI

CHAPTER :FIVE

PRESENTER:MARYAM NOORI KHORASANI

Chapter reviewThis chapter is concerned with English syntax, how word are grouped within sentences ,phrases and clauses

Constituency phrases

Form and function sentences

Formal and notional definitions word classes

Linear hierarchical structure clause function

What is syntax?description of rules of grammar.

The study of rules in which how words are combined

instead of describing why particular structures are used in specific contexts

,the discussion will focus more explicitly on how particular constructions are formed

syntax is the notion of constituency: the idea that syntactic units are not

simply arbitrarily grouped and ordered but form identifiable units

syntacticians have identified four different levels of structure

at which constituents can occur:

sentences → clauses → phrases → words

Test for constituentTo identify constituents, it is possible to apply specific tests

Substitution test:.if a word such as pronun could substitute for a group of words the groups of words is a constituent Ali bought a new car

insertion test:One test for constituents involves the insertion of a moveable adverb into the sentence ,

a picture of flower hung on the wall

we have insertion, substitution, and movement tests for testing constituent

these test show that at the level of syntax, certain structures form units but others do not.

Those structures that do form units are not an arbitrary This constructions form the building blocks of English syntax.

Formal notional definitions

Grammatical descriptions are two types: formal or notional .

Formal descriptions focus on specific characteristics of a grammatical construction.

Notional definition in contrast, are more semantic in nature and define constructions in terms of general qualities that they possess

Consider the word truck

example for formally description: Noun in English is something that has the ability to be pluralized by the addition of s

Truck is a noun because it has this ability

Notionally, nouns are defined as anything that is a person, place, thing, or idea

Truck is a noun because it is a “thing”.

formal or notional definition

Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:

All mimsy were the borogoves,

And the mome raths outgrabereaders or listener who analyze the sentences (to. identify nouns, verbs, and so forth), often rely on formal definitions of grammatical categories rather than on notional definitionshow constructions are analyzed depends crucially upon where they occur in a sentence or clause in relation to other constructionWhile some kind of notional, or semantic, analysis can complement purely formal analyses, notional analyses alone are way too vague to provide definitive definitions of grammatical construction

The linear and hierarchical structuring of constituents

consider the expression foreign language specialist

two different meanings depending upon how the words in the expression are grouped

The linear and hierarchical structuring of constituents

How foreign language specialist is interpreted depends not just on how the words are ordered but upon whether language is grouped with foreign Or Specialist

v

Groupings of this nature constitute the core of English syntax, and along with constrain on the linear order of constituents they allow linguistics to describe the form and function of various kinds of constructions in English.

Form and functionConstituents can be described in terms of their form and their function. In the clause The child is healthy, healthy has the form of an adjective phrase and the function of a subject complement.

The form of some constituents can be determined by the particular suffixes that they contain as well as their positions relative to other constituents

analysis reveals that constituents have forms at all four levels of structure

Word Classes: noun, verb, adjective, adverb,

Phrases: noun phrase, verb phrase, adjective phrase, adverb phrase, prepositional phrase

Clauses: main, dependent

Sentences: declarative, interrogative, imperative, exclamatory

Clause functionsEnglish has far fewer functions, and these functions are restricted to elements occurring within clauses (both main and subordinate).

The functions below are often referred to as clause functions

Subject the child road a bike

Predicator the child road a bike

Complement (subject and object) the child is healthy

Object (direct and indirect) the child road a bike

Adverbial

Word classes and phrases

A phrase is named after the word class that acts as head of the phrase.

A head is a word upon which everything in a phrase is centered and show the grammatical role of the phrase

In a phrase such as full of hope, for instance, all parts of the phrase are associated with the

adjective full. Therefore, this construction is called an adjective phrase.

in the phrase might have mattered, everything is associated with

the lexical verb mattered, making this a verb phrase.

word classes and phrases are so closely linked that there are cases where a single word

can constitute a phrase. In the sentence Necessity is the mother of invention,

necessity is both a noun and a noun phrase. It is a noun, because it contains the suffix -ity,

one of a series of suffixes that occur on nouns. It is a noun phrase because it is functioning as subject of the sentence,

Noun phrasesAll noun phrases (NPs) are centered on either a head noun or pronoun

One key characteristic of noun is that most exhibit number they have a singular or plural form often marked in writing by orthographic s.

Nouns have traditionally been distinguished as being count or noncount.

Count nouns are literally “countable

Count and non counts noun in English

Personal pronouns in English

The internal structure of noun phrases.

While it is possible for a noun phrase to contain only a single head noun or pronoun, other form classes can optionally occur before or after the head noun.

Verb phrase verb phrase contains two components: an obligatory lexical verb “full verb,” which

acts as head of the verb phrase, and one or more optional auxiliary verb

Order of auxiliary verbs

comparison:The verb phrase Quirk(1985)

alternative view of the verb phrase (Aartsand

Haegeman 2006)

THE TWO NOUN PHRASES AND THE VERB PHRASE ARE SEPARATE CONSTITUENTS IN THE SENTENCE THE FINAL NOUN PHRASE, FOR INSTANCE, IS NOT EMBEDDED IN THE VERB PHRASE.

THAT POST-VERBAL NOUN PHRASES SUCH AS MY

MOTHER ARE NOT SEPARATE CONSTITUENTS IN THE SENTENCE BUT EMBEDDED IN THE VERB PHRASE

Clauses, sentences, and clause functions

clauses and sentences differ from words and phrases in that they can additionally be analyzed into clause functions: subject, predicator, object (direct or indirect), complement(subject or object), and adverbial.

The child rode a bicycle

The child functions as subject, rode as predicator, and a bike as direct object While the verb within the predicator dictates which clause functions can occur within a clause, how functions such as subject and object are defined is determined by a series of linguistic characteristics that each function possesses and that distinguish one function from another. Onecharacteristic is positional: subjects tend to occur before the verb, objects after the verb

Main and subordinate clausesAll sentences consist of an obligatory main clause and one or more optional

subordinate clause . a clause becomes subordinate if it:

(1 )lacks a finite verb and instead contains one or more non-finite verbs;or

(2 )is headed by a subordinating conjunction such as when, if, because, or who

[Thinking he was taking a call from the FBI liaison man in London to announce Simon Cormack’s release ],Michael Odell did not mind the hour: 5 a.m. in Washing

As the term ‘subordinate’ suggests, a subordinate clause is always part of a main clause. In the example above, the opening clause , which contains the non-finite participle thinking, is subordinate to the main clause , which is marked by the finite auxiliary which is in the past tense

Clause functions Clause functions are best defined in terms of their relationship to one another

. linguistic criteria need to be considered to determine which function a particular element in a clause should have. For instance, noun phrases can function as subject, object, complement,or adverbial. However, whether a noun phrase is functioning as, subject or direct object will depend upon the relationship the noun phrase has with the predicator.

The end

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