Introduction to English
Syntax
2nd semester 2011
By Fitri
Syntax in Linguistic Tree
Linguistics
Sounds of
language Grammar Meanin
g
Phonetics Phonolog Morpholog Syntax Semantic
y Pragmatic
y s s
What is syntax?
Syntax is a branch of
linguistics that studies the
rules that govern the
formation of sentences.
Analyzing
1. a. The boy found the ball.
b. The boy found quickly.
c. The boy found in the house.
d. The boy found the ball in the
house.
2. a. Sylvia slept the baby
b. Sylvia slept soundly
Grammaticality
judgments
It’s determined by rules that are
shared by the speakers of
language.
Words must conform to specific
patterns determined by syntactic
rules of the language.
Categories
Category refers to a group of
linguistic items which fulfill the
same or similar functions in a
particular language such as a
sentence, a noun phrase or a
verb.
Word-level categories
Words can be grouped together
into a relatively small number of
classes, called syntactic
categories, which can generally
substitute for one another
without loss of grammaticality.
Word-level categories are divided
into:
1. lexical words (open class words)
2. Functional words (closed class
words)
Lexical words
It is called “open” (lexical) because
languages can freely add new
words to the set.
e.g.
Noun, Verb, Adjective,
and Adverb
Functional words
It’s called “functional” words because
they carry little meaning (have no
synonyms) and typically “help”
another word.
e.g.
Determiner, Degree words,
Qualifier, Auxiliary, Conjunction,
Pronoun, Preposition
Example of Syntactic
Categories
Lexical Examples:
categories: moisture, policy
Noun (N) melt, remain
Verb (V) good, intelligent
Adjective (A) slowly, now
Adverb (Adv)
Functional Examples:
categories: the, this
Determiner (Det) very, more
Degree word always, perhaps
(Deg) will, can
Qualifier (Qual)
and, or
Auxiliary (Aux)
Conjunction
(Con)
Indicate the category of each
word in the following
sentences.
a. The glass suddenly broke.
Det / N / Adv / V
b. A jogger ran towards the end of the
lane.
Det / N / V / P / Det / N / P / Det / N
c. The peaches never appear quite ripe.
Det / N / Qual / V / Deg / Adj
d. Gillian will play the trumpet and the
drums
N / Auxin
/ Vthe
/ Det orchestra.
/ N / Conj / Det / N / P / Det / N
Phrase categories and
their structures
Syntactic units that are built around
a certain word category are called
phrases, the category of which is
determined by the word category
around which the phrase is built.
E.g. if the word around which the
phrase is built is a noun, then the
phrase is a noun phrase.
e.g.
the car, a clever student
Phrasal categories
The most commonly recognized
categories:
NP : Noun Phrase
The car, a clever student
VP : Verb Phrase
study hard, play the guitar
PP : Prepositional Phrase
in the class, above the earth
AP : Adjective Phrase
Other examples
[NP the pretty girl]
[VP often dream]
[AP very pessimistic]
[PP mainly about]
Phrase Structure Rules(I)
The phrase structure rule for NP, VP,
AP and PP (example):
NP(Det) N (PP) …
VP(Qual) V (NP) …
AP(Deg) A (PP) …
PP(Deg) P (NP) …
Symbols
The list of common symbols in
syntactic analysis:
S Sentence Pro Pronoun
N Noun Adv Adverb
V Verb Prep Preposition
Art Article PP Prep phrase
NP Noun phrase Det Determiner
VP Verb phrase PN Proper noun
Adj adjective
Phrase structure rules (II)
NP (Det) N (PP)
PP P NP
The bus in the yard
The bus (NP)
NP
Det N
Det N PP
The bus P NP
Det N
The bus in the
yard
Phrase structure rules
VP V (NP) (PP)
(III)
took the money from the
took the money
bank
(VP)
(VP)
V NP
V NP PP
det N Det N P NP
took the money
Det N
took the money from the bank
Draw the tree diagram!
1. repaired the telephone
2. the success of the program
3. a film about pollution
4. move towards the window
5. cast a spell on the broomstick
The main structure rules
1. S NP (Aux) VP
2. NP (Det) (AP) N (PP)
3. VP V (NP) (PP) (Adv)
4. PP P NP
5. AP A (PP)
e.g. The old tree swayed in the
wind
S
NP Aux VP
Det Adj N V PP
P NP
Det N
The old tree past swayed in the
wind
The children put the toy in the
box
S
NP VP
Det N
V NP PP
Det N P NP
Det
N
The children put the toy in
Structural ambiguity (I)
Synthetic buffalo hides (NP) Synthetic buffalo hides (NP)
Synthetic buffalo hides Synthetic buffalo hides
Buffalo hides that are synthetic. Hides of synthetic buffalo.
Ambiguities often lead to humorous results:
For sale: an antique desk suitable
for lady with thick legs and large
drawers.
what does “thick legs and large
drawers” refer to?
The desk or the lady?
Structural ambiguity(II)
The boy saw the man with the
telescope
S
NP Aux VP
Det N V NP PP
Det N P NP
Det N
The boy past saw the man with the telescope
Structural ambiguity (III)
The boy saw the man with the
telescope
S
NP Aux VP
Det N V NP
Det N PP
P NP
Det N
The boy past saw the man with the telescope
Draw two phrase structure trees representing the
two meanings of the sentence:
The magician touched the child with the
wand.
Be sure you indicate which meaning goes with which
tree.
Deep structure
The basic structure of sentences
which specified by phrase structure
rules.
e.g. NP + V + NP
Same deep structure can be the
source of many other surface
structures.
For example:
The boy is sleeping Is the
boy sleeping?
S
NP Aux VP
Det N V
The boy is Sleeping
S
Aux NP VP
Det N V
Is the boy --- sleeping
Example of same deep structure:
Charlie broke the window
It was Charlie who broke the
window
Was the window broken by
Charlie?
Surface structure
The variant of basic sentence
structures.
The structures that result from the
application of transformational
rules.
Other sentence types that are
transformationally related are:
Passive sentences
‘there’ sentences
A man was on the roof there
was a man on the roof
PP preposing
The astronomer saw a meteor with his
telescope with his telescope the
astronomer saw a meteor
Example of deep &
surface Structures
The boy will leave Will the boy leave?
S S
NP Aux VP Aux NP VP
Det N V Det N V
The boy will leave Will the boy leave
The deep structure The surface structure
Draw the deep & surface structure of
the following sentences:
1. Will the boss hire Hillary?
2. Is that player leaving the team?
3. Who should the director call?
4. What is Joanne eating?
More phrase structure
rules
Coordinate structure
A coordinate structure results when
two constituents of the same
category are joined with a
conjunction, such as and or or.
e.g
NP
NP Conj NP
Det N Det N
The cat and the dog
Embedded sentence
It includes another sentence within
itself.
e.g.
the teacher believes the student
knows the answer
Complementizers
It introduces a complement phrase
S
NP Aux VP
Det N present V S
The teacher believe the student
knows the answer
Example of complementizer
NP Aux VP
Det N present V CP
C S
The teacher believes that the
student knows the
answer
The Wh-movement
S
NP Aux VP
Det N V NP
Det N
The man should repair which car
References
Yule, J. (2010). The study of language: 4th
edition. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press
Fromkin, V., Rodman, R., Hyams, N.,
Collins, P. & Amberber, M. (2005). An
introduction to language: 5th edition.
Merlbourne: Nelson Thomson Learning
Pty
Steinberg, D.D. (1993). An introduction
to psycholinguistics. New York: Longman
