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1. Syntax The Analysis ofSentence Structure By Carinne Karlickand Kaitlyn Hinze C:Documents and SettingsCarinneLocal SettingsTemporary Internet FilesContent.IE5ZLPII1HOMM900046559[1].gif

Syntaxis generally defined as the system of rules for the formation of sentence structure (Topic A).

One word does not express much, therefore we put words in order to create meaning.

Utterances must be grammatical to be considered a possible sentence of a language.

Any combination of words does not produce a well-formed sentence.

For example: Student book brought the home.

Correct: The student brought the book home.

(OGrady, p.251).

A theory of syntax is an attempt to describe the rules that govern order of words and to account for how syntax is changed to create different sentences (Freeman, p. 220). Four steps to building a theory of syntax:

Determine what elements to include (linear order of words)

Recognize that words in a sentence are not all the same

Group the words

Consider the function of each group of words

Find connections among the parts of the sentence

Universal Grammar (UG) is the system of categories, operations and principles shared by all languages. It is believed that the syntactic component of any grammar must include 2 subcomponents:

Lexicon : provides a list of the languages words & information about punctuation, form and meaning.

Computational System : operations that combine and arrange words in certain ways.

(OGrady, P. 152)

Lexical Categories

Noun (N)

EX: boy, dog, Rachel, moisture, desk

Verb (V)

EX:run, talk, depart, jump

Adjective (A)

EX: happy, brave, fond, short

Preposition (P)

EX: to, in, by, near

Adverb (Adv)

EX: chiefly, slowly, quietly, always

(OGrady, P153)

Non-lexical Categories

Determiner (Det)

EX: the, a this, these

Auxiliary Verb (Aux)

Modal : will, can, may, should

Non-modal : be, have

Conjunction (Con)

Ex: and, or, but

Degree Word (Deg)

Ex:too, so, very, quite

The Question Rule: forming questions from statements. Linguists try to form rules that govern processes as clearly as possible so that they may be tested against new sentences. They state a rule (a hypothesis) and then test the rules against possible sentences. Each time a counterexample is found, the rules is revisited.

Phrase Structure Rules: attempt to specify how the phrases in a sentence are structured. Phrase structure rules are written in certain conventions:

Noun Phrase (NP) --Determiner (DET)

Auxiliary verb (AUX) --Quantifier (Q)

Verb Phrase (VP) --Adjective Phrase (ADJP)

Prepositional Phrase (PP) --Adverb Phrase (ADVP)

Sentence NP-AUX-VP NP(DET)-(Q)-(ADJP)-N-(PP)

VP V-(NP)-(PP)-(ADVP) (parenthesesare optional)

Pinker (p. 211) identifies garden path sentences as sentences, that are grammatically correct, but whose first words lead the listener up the garden path to an incorrect analysis.

Example: The cotton clothing is usually made of grows in Mississippi.

According to OGrady (p. 153), elements have meaning that are harder to define than those of lexical categories.

For example: theor would are harder to definethan hillor vehicle .

Some words belong to more than one category.

For example: comb (N) The lady found a comb

comb (V) The boy should comb his hair.

Meaning : nouns name people, places things ideas. Verbs designate actions and states of being etc. But a words category does not have a straightforward relationship to its meaning (OGrady, p. 154)

Infection : the change of a words form to show grammatical information of various sorts (OGrady, p.127) For example: plural, possessive, past tense, third person singular etc. But infection does not always provide information needed to determine a words category (OGrady, p. 155).

Distribution :this criteria is more reliable. Nous appear with determiners, verbs with an auxiliary and adjectives with a degree word. (See table 5.3, OGrady on p. 155)

Sentences : are the largest unit of syntactic analysis.

Sentences have a hierarchical design in which words are grouped together into successively larger structural units.

The structure of phrases are the units that stand between words and sentences in syntactic structure.

A typical phrase can be broken down into 3 parts: a head, a specifier and a complement arranged in the X Schema which are called (inverted) trees.

(OGrady, pp.155-156)

Heads : The nucleus around which a phrase is built. Four categories can function as the head: nouns (N), verbs (V), adjectives (A) and prepositions (P).

Specifiers : a specifer within a phrase depends on the category of the head.

Complements : provide information about entities and locations whose existence is implied by the head.

Refer to OGrady pp. 157-159

The Substitution Test : syntactic units can be replaced by an element such as they, it ordo so.

Ex: The children stopped at the corner .

They stopped at the corner or The children stopped there .

The Movement Test: a constituent can be moved as a single unit to a different position within a sentence.

Ex: They stopped at the corner

At the corner, they stopped.

The Coordination Test: a group of words forms a constituent if it can be joined to another group of words by a conjunction like and, or , or but.

Ex: The children stopped at the corner and looked both ways.

(OGrady, p. 162)

Verb Complement

Compliment option-NPSample head- vanish Ex- The rabbit vanished

Noun Complements

Compliment option-PP ofSample head- memory Ex- the memory [PP ofa friend ]

Adjective Complements

Complement option-PP toSample Head- obvious Ex- obvious [PP to the student ]

Preposition Complements

Complement option- NP Sample head- in Ex- in [NP the house ]

(OGrady, pp. 162-166)

The formation of questions require use of a structure-building operation called move . Traditionally known as transformation because it transforms an existing structure.

Example : Should that guy go?

That guy should go.

A transformation or move operation can do no more than change and elements position (OGrady, pp. 167-171)

All languages are fundamentally alike with respect to the basics of syntax.

All languages use the merge operation to combine words on the basis of their syntactic category and sub categorization properties, creating phrases that comply with the X schema.

There is room for variation allowing individual languages to differ with respect to certain parameters .

Parametersare the set of options that UG permits for a particular phenomenon.(OGrady, P. 177)

Linguists use intuitions of native speakers to determine grammatical acceptability.

People studying a new language get frustrated when they are corrected but the corrector cannot explain the rule for determining which word to use (Freeman, p. 229).

By attempting to describe syntactic structure, linguists are trying to describe how the language words- not prescribing correct usage.

One of the most widely used methods of teaching L2 is the audiolingualmethod (ALM).

In ALM, students are expected to learn syntax without explicit instruction.

Students have struggled using ALM because language is not simply developed by imitating what people say. Rules need to be constructed to comprehend and produce new language (Freeman, p. 246)

Academic writing and speech contain more complex syntax than conversational language.

In the sociopsycholinguisticview of reading, syntactic cues are an important source of information that readers use to make predictions as they construct meaning. Some struggling readers read slowly to pronounce each word, and fail to access syntactic cues.

Overview of Syntax http://www.harmony.org.uk/book/linguistics_syntax.htm Basic exercises in Syntax (trees) http://www.mta.ca/~wburnett/syntex.html

OGrady, W., Archibald, J., Aronoff, M., & Rees-Miller, J.(2005). Contemporary linguistics, an introduction . (5thed.). Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin's.

Freeman, D. and Freeman Y. (2004). Essential Linguistics: What You Need to Know to Teach Reading, ESL, Spelling, Phonics, and Grammar. Heinneman.

Pinker, S. (2007). The Language Instinct: How the mind creates Language. New York: Harper Perennial. Harper Collins.

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