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Chapter FourChapter FourFrom Word to TextFrom Word to Text

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• Syntax is the study of the rules governing the ways different constituents are combined to form sentences in a language, or the study of the interrelationships between elements in sentence structures.

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• Syntactic relations can be analysed into three kinds:– relations of position– relations of substitutability– relations of co-occurrence

1. Syntactic relations1. Syntactic relations

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1.1 Relations of1.1 Relations of PositionPosition

• For language to fulfill its communicative function, it must have a way to mark the grammatical roles of the various phrases that can occur in a clause.

• The boy kicked the ball

NP1 NP2

Subject Object

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• Positional relation, or WORD ORDER, refers to the sequential arrangement of words in a language. – If the words in a sentence fail to occur in a

fixed order required by the convention of a language, one tends to produce an utterance either ungrammatical or nonsensical at all.

• For example,

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• The boy kicked the ball– *Boy the ball kicked the– *The ball kicked the boy

• The teacher saw the students

• The students saw the teacher

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• Positional relations are a manifestation of one aspect of Syntagmatic Relations observed by F. de Saussure. – They are also called Horizontal Relations o

r simply Chain Relations.

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• Word order is among the three basic ways (word order, genetic and areal classifications) to classify languages in the world: – SVO, VSO, SOV, OVS, OSV, and VOS. – English belongs to SVO type, though this

does not mean that SVO is the only possible word order.

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1.2 Relation of Substitutability1.2 Relation of Substitutability

• The Relation of Substitutability refers to classes or sets of words substitutable for each other grammatically in sentences with the same structure. – The ______ smiles. 

man

boy

girl

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• It also refers to groups of more than one word which may be jointly substitutable grammatically for a single word of a particular set.

strong man– The tallest boy smiles.

pretty girl

yesterday.– He went there last week.

the day before.

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• This is also called Associative Relations by Saussure, and Paradigmatic Relations by Hjemslev. – To make it more understanda

ble, they are called Vertical Relations or Choice Relations.

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1.3 Relation of Co-occurrence1.3 Relation of Co-occurrence

• It means that words of different sets of clauses may permit, or require, the occurrence of a word of another set or class to form a sentence or a particular part of a sentence. – For instance, a nominal phrase can be pre

ceded by a determiner and adjective(s) and followed by a verbal phrase.

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• Relations of co-occurrence partly belong to syntagmatic relations, partly to paradigmatic relations.

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2. Grammatical construction and its 2. Grammatical construction and its constituentsconstituents

2.1 Grammatical Construction

• Any syntactic string of words ranging from sentences over phrasal structures to certain complex lexemes.– an apple– ate an apple– Mary ate an apple

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2.2 Constituents and Phrase 2.2 Constituents and Phrase StructureStructure• Constituent is a part of a larger

linguistic unit. Several constituents together form a construction: – the girl (NP)– ate the apple (VP)– the girl ate the apple (S)

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Immediate Constituent AnalysisImmediate Constituent Analysis(IC Analysis)(IC Analysis)

The girl ate the apple

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Phrase StructurePhrase StructureTree diagramTree diagram S

NP VP

Det N V NP

Det N

The girl ate the apple

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Word-level Phrasal

N=nounA=adjectiveV=verbP=prepositionDet=determinerAdv=adverbConj=conjunction

NP=noun phraseAP=adjective phraseVP=verb phrasePP=preposition

phraseS=sentence or clause

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BracketingBracketing

• Bracketing is not as common in use, but it is an economic notation in representing the constituent/phrase structure of a grammatical unit. – (((The) (girl)) ((ate) ((the) (apple))))

– [S[NP[Det The][N girl]][VP[V ate][NP[Det the][N apple]]]]

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2.3 Endocentric and Exocentric 2.3 Endocentric and Exocentric Constructions Constructions

• Endocentric construction is one whose distribution is functionally equivalent to that of one or more of its constituents, i.e., a word or a group of words, which serves as a definable centre or head.– Usually noun phrases, verb phrases and

adjective phrases belong to endocentric types because the constituent items are subordinate to the Head.

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• Exocentric construction refers to a group of syntactically related words where none of the words is functionally equivalent to the group as a whole, that is, there is no definable “Centre” or “Head” inside the group, usually including

– the basic sentence,

– the prepositional phrase,

– the predicate (verb + object) construction, and

– the connective (be + complement) construction.

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• The boy smiled. (Neither constituent can substitute for the sentence structure as a whole.)

• He hid behind the door. (Neither constituent can function as an adverbial.)

• He kicked the ball. (Neither constituent stands for the verb-object sequence.)

• John seemed angry. (After division, the connective construction no longer exists.)

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2.4 Coordination and Subordination 2.4 Coordination and Subordination

• Endocentric constructions fall into two main types, depending on the relation between constituents:

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Coordination Coordination

• Coordination is a common syntactic pattern in English and other languages formed by grouping together two or more categories of the same type with the help of a conjunction such as and, but and or . – These two or more words or phrases or

clauses have equivalent syntactic status, each of the separate constituents can stand for the original construction functionally.

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• Coordination of NPs:– [NP the lady] or [NP the tiger]

• Coordination of VPs:– [VP go to the library] and [VP read a book ]

• Coordination of PPs: – [PP down the stairs] and [PP out the door ]

• Coordination of APs: – [AP quite expensive] and [AP very beautiful]

• Coordination of Ss:– [S John loves Mary] and [S Mary loves John too].

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Subordination Subordination

• Subordination refers to the process or result of linking linguistic units so that they have different syntactic status, one being dependent upon the other, and usually a constituent of the other. – The subordinate constituents are words

which modify the head. Consequently, they can be called modifiers.

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• two  dogs

          Head

• (My brother) can drink (wine).

Head

• Swimming in the lake (is fun).

Head

• (The pepper was) hot beyond endurance.

Head

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Subordinate clausesSubordinate clauses

• Clauses can be used as subordinate constituents. There are three basic types of subordinate clauses: – complement clauses– adjunct (or adverbial) clauses– relative clauses

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• John believes [that the airplane was invented by an Irishman]. (complement clause)

• Elizabeth opened her presents [before John finished his dinner]. (adverbial clause)

• The woman [that I love] is moving to the south. (relative clause)

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3. Syntactic Function3. Syntactic Function

• The syntactic function shows the relationship between a linguistic form and other parts of the linguistic pattern in which it is used.– Names of functions are expressed in terms

of subjects, objects, predicators, modifiers, complements, etc.

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3.1 Subject3.1 Subject

• In some languages, subject refers to one of the nouns in the nominative case.

• The typical example can be found in Latin, where subject is always in nominative case, such as pater and filius in the following examples.– pater filium amat (the father loves the son)– patrum filius amat (the son loves the fathe

r)

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• In English, the subject of a sentence is often said to be the agent, or the doer of the action, while the object is the person or thing acted upon by the agent. – This definition seems to work for these

sentences:– Mary slapped John. ■ A dog bit Bill.

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• but is clearly wrong in the following examples:– John was bitten by a dog. – John underwent major heart surgery.

• In order to account for the case of subject in passive voice, we have two other terms “grammatical subject” (John) and “logical subject” (a dog).

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• Another traditional definition of the subject is “what the sentence is about” (i.e., topic).

• Again, this seems to work for many sentences, such as– Bill is a very crafty fellow.

• but fails in others, such as– (Jack is pretty reliable, but) Bill I don’t

trust. – As for Bill, I wouldn’t take his promises

very seriously.

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• All three sentences seem to be “about” Bill; thus we could say that Bill is the topic of all three sentences.

• The above sentences make it clear that the topic is not always the grammatical subject.

• What characteristics do subjects have?

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Word orderWord order

• Subject ordinarily precedes the verb in the statement: – Sally collects stamps.– *Collects Sally stamps.

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Pro-formsPro-forms

• The first and third person pronouns in English appear in a special form when the pronoun is a subject, which is not used when the pronoun occurs in other positions:– He loves me. – I love him.– We threw stones at them.– They threw stones at us.

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Agreement with the verbAgreement with the verb

• In the simple present tense, an -s is added to the verb when a third person subject is singular, but the number and person of the object or any other element in the sentence have no effect at all on the form of the verb: – She angers him. – They anger him.    – She angers them.

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Content questionsContent questions

• If the subject is replaced by a question word (who or what), the rest of the sentence remains unchanged, as in– John stole the Queen’s picture

from the British Council.– Who stole the Queen’s picture

from the British council?

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– What would John steal, if he had the chance?

– What did John steal from the British Council?

– Where did John steal the Queen’s picture from?

When any other element of the When any other element of the sentence is replaced by a question sentence is replaced by a question word, an auxiliary verb must word, an auxiliary verb must appear before the subject. appear before the subject.

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Tag questionTag question

• A tag question is used to seek confirmation of a statement. It always contains a pronoun which refers back to the subject, and never to any other element in the sentence. – John loves Mary, doesn’t he?– Mary loves John, doesn’t she?– *John loves Mary, doesn’t she?

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3.2 Predicate3.2 Predicate • Predicate refers to a major constituent of

sentence structure in a binary analysis in which all obligatory constituents other than the subject were considered together.

• It usually expresses actions, processes, and states that refer to the subject.– The boy is running. (process)– Peter broke the glass. (action)– Jane must be mad! (state)

• The word predicator is suggested for verb or verbs included in a predicate.

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3.3 Object3.3 Object

• Object is also a term hard to define. Since, traditionally, subject can be defined as the doer of the action, object may refer to the “receiver” or “goal” of an action, and it is further classified into Direct Object and Indirect Object.– Mother bought a doll.– Mother gave my sister  a doll.

IO   DO

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• In some inflecting languages, object is marked by case labels: the accusative case for direct object, and the dative case for indirect object.– In English, “object” is recognized by

tracing its relation to word order (after the verb and preposition) and by inflections (of pro nouns).

– Mother gave a doll to my sister.– John kicked me.

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• Modern linguists suggest that object refers to such an item that it can become subject in a passive transformation.– John broke the glass. The glass was

broken by John.– Peter saw Jane. Jane was seen by Peter.

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• Although there are nominal phrases in the following, they are by no means objects because they cannot be transformed into passive voice.– He died last week.– The match lasted three hours.– He changed trains at Manchester. (*Trains

were changed by him at Manchester.)

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4. Category4. Category

• The term category refers to the defining properties of these general units: – Categories of the noun: number, gender, c

ase and countability – Categories of the verb: tense, aspect, voic

e

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4.1 Number4.1 Number

• Number is a grammatical category used for the analysis of word classes displaying such contrasts as singular, dual, plural, etc. – In English, number is mainly observed in

nouns, and there are only two forms: singular and plural, such as dog: dogs.

– Number is also reflected in the inflections of pronouns and verbs, such as He laughs: They laugh, this man: these men.

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• In other languages, for example, French, the manifestation of number can also be found in adjectives and articles.– le cheval royal (the royal horse) – les chevaux royaux (the royal horses)

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4.2 Gender4.2 Gender

• Such contrasts as “masculine : feminine : neuter”, “animate : inanimate”, etc. for the analysis of word classes. – Though there is a correlation between natur

al gender and grammatical gender, the assignment may seem quite arbitrary in many cases.

– For instance, in Latin, ignis ‘fire’ is masculine, while flamma ‘flame’ is feminine.

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• English gender contrast can only be observed in pronouns and a small number of nouns, and, they are mainly of the natural gender type.– he: she: it – prince: princess – author: authoress

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• In French, gender is manifested also both in adjectives and articles. – beau cadeau (fine gift) – belle maison (fine hou

se)– Le cadeau est beau. (T

he gift is good.)– La maison est belle. (T

he house is beautiful.)

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• Sometimes gender changes the lexical meaning as well, for example, in French:– le poele (the stove)– la poele (the frying pan)– le pendule (the pendulum) – la pendule (the clock)

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4.3 Case4.3 Case • The case category is used in the analysis

of word classes to identify the syntactic relationship between words in a sentence.– In Latin grammar, cases are based on

variations in the morphological forms of the word, and are given the terms “accusative”, “nominative”, “dative”, etc.

– There are five cases in ancient Greek and eight in Sanskrit. Finnish has as many as fifteen formally distinct cases in nouns, each with its own syntactic function.

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• In English, case is a special form of the noun which frequently corresponds to a combination of preposition and noun, and it is realized in three channels: – inflection– following a preposition– word order

• as manifested in– teacher : teacher’s– with : to a man– John kicked Peter : Peter kicked John

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4.4 Agreement4.4 Agreement

• Agreement (or concord) may be defined as the requirement that the forms of two or more words of specific word classes that stand in specific syntactic relationship with one another shall also, be characterized by the same paradigmatically marked category (or categories).

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• This syntactic relationship may be anaphoric, as when a pronoun agrees with its antecedent, – Whose is this pen? --Oh, it’s the one I lost.

• or it may involve a relation between a head and its dependent, as when a verb agrees with its subject and object:– Each person may have one coin.

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• Agreement of number between nouns and verbs:– This man runs.   The bird flies. – These men run.      These birds fly.

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Sentence

Clause

Phrase

Word

5. Phrase, Clause and Sentence5. Phrase, Clause and Sentence

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• the three tallest girls (nominal phrase)

• has been doing (verbal phrase)

• extremely difficult(adjectival phrase)

• to the door (prepositional phrase)

• very fast (adverbial phrase)

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Clause

Finite Non-finite

Infinitive

Participial

Gerundial

Subject Object

Adverbial Relative

Appositional Complement

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• The best thing would be to leave early.• It’s great for a man to be free.• Having finished their task, they came to help

us.• John being away, Bill had to do the work.• Filled with shame, he left the house.• All our savings gone, we started looking for

jobs.• It’s no use crying over spilt milk. • Do you mind my opening the window?

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Sentence: traditional approachSentence: traditional approach

simple

Sentence complex

non-simple

compound

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Sentence: functional approachSentence: functional approach

Yes/no

Interrogative Indicative wh- DeclarativeSentence Jussive Imperative Optative

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Basic sentence types: BolingerBasic sentence types: Bolinger

• Mother fell. (Nominal + intransitive verbal)• Mother is young. (Nominal + copula +

complement)• Mother loves Dad. (Nominal + transitive

verbal + nominal).• Mother fed Dad breakfast. (Nominal +

transitive verbal + nominal + nominal)

• There is time. (There + existential + nominal)

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Basic sentence types: QuirkBasic sentence types: Quirk

• SVC    Mary is kind.

a nurse.• SVA    Mary is here.

in the house.• SV      The child is laughing.• SVO    Somebody caught the ball. • SVOC   We have proved him wrong.

                                         a fool.• SVOA    I put the plate on the table. • SVOO   She gives me expensive presents.

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6. Recursiveness6. Recursiveness • Recursiveness mainly means that a phras

al constituent can be embedded within another constituent having the same category, but it has become an umbrella term such important linguistic phenomena as coordination and subordination, conjoining and embedding, hypotactic and paratactic. – All these are means to extend sentences. – How long can a sentence be?

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• Theoretically, there is no limit to the embedding of one relative clause into another relative clause, so long as it does not become an obstacle to successful communication.

• The same holds true for nominal clauses and adverbial clauses. – I met a man who had a son whose wife

sold cookies that she had baked in her kitchen that was fully equipped with electrical appliances that were new …

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• John’s sister • John’s sister’s husband• John’s sister’s husband’s uncle • John’s sister’s husband’s uncle’s daughter,

etc.

• that house in Beijing• the garden of that house in Beijing• the tree in the garden of that house in Beijing• a bird on the tree in the garden of that house

in Beijing

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6.1 Conjoining6.1 Conjoining

• Conjoining: coordination.

• Conjunctions: and, but, and or. – John bought a hat and his

wife bought a handbag.– Give me liberty or give me

death. 

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6.2 Embedding6.2 Embedding• Embedding: subordination.• Main clauses and subordinate clauses. • Three basic types of subordinate

clauses: – Relative clause: I saw the man who had

visited you last year. – Complement clause: I don’t know whether

Professor Li needs this book. – Adverbial clause: If you listened to me, you

wouldn't make mistakes.

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7. Text and discourse7. Text and discourse

• The development of modern linguistic science has helped push the study of syntax beyond the traditional sentence boundary.

• Linguists are now exploring the syntactic relation between sentences in a paragraph or chapter or the whole text, which leads to the emergence of text linguistics and discourse analysis. 

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7.1 Sentential Connection7.1 Sentential Connection

• Hypotactic (subordinate clauses):– You can phone the doctor if you like.

However, I very much doubt whether he is in.

– We live near the sea. So we enjoy a healthy climate.

• Paratactic (coordinate clauses):– In Guangzhou it is hot and humid during the

summer. In Beijing it is hot and dry.– He dictated the letter. She wrote it.– The door was open. He walked in.

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7.2 Cohesion and cohesiveness7.2 Cohesion and cohesiveness• Cohesion is a concept to do with discourse

or text rather than with syntax. It refers to relations of meaning that exist within the text, and defines it as a text.

• Cohesiveness can be realized by employing various cohesive devices: – conjunction– ellipsis– lexical collocation– lexical repetition– reference– substitution, etc.

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• “Did she get there at six?”“No, (she got there) earlier (than six).” (Ellipsis)

• “Shall we invite Bill?”“No. 1 can’t stand the man.” (Lexical collocation)

• He couldn’t open the door. It was locked tight. (Reference)

• “Why don’t you use your own recorder?”“I don't have one.” (Substitution)

• I wanted to help him. Unfortunately it was too late. (Logical connection)