ENGLISH SYNTAX

What is Syntax?
Syntax is a branch of linguistics dealing with the ways in which words are arranged to show
connections of meaning within the sentence. It is the study of the principles and processes by
which sentences are constructed in particular languages. Syntactic investigation of a given
language has as its goal the construction of a grammar that can be viewed as a device of some
sort for producing the sentences of the language under analysis.
It deals with:
- Rules of combining syntactic units into constructions (process: words phrases
clauses sentences)
- Results of combining (product: analysis)
- Structures. Functions. Relations

Syntactic Units and Constructions

A construction is a composite form whose constituent parts are held together by a certain
syntactic relation. A construction at one level becomes a unit at another level.
Word is the basic syntactic unit. It is the smallest linguistic unit which has a definite
phonological and orthographic form, morphological structure and meaning, can stand on its own
and can enter grammatical relations with other units, thus forming constructions.
*Oronyms are strings of sound that can be carved into words in more ways than one (e.g. known
oceans/no notions).
Words consist of a number of building elements (morphemes).
The syntactic behavior of a word is primarily defined in terms of word classes (parts of speech).
Open-class words are lexical/full/content words. They are nouns, verbs (full), adjectives and
adverbs. Closed-class words are grammatical/empty/function words. They are determiners,
pronouns, prepositions, conjunctions, primary verbs, modal verbs. Additional classes of words
include numerals and interjections.

Syntactic Hierarchy. Constituent Structure. Immediate Constituent Analysis.

Constructions can be phrases, clauses, or sentences.
There are different types of phrases:
- Noun phrase (e.g. the hardworking students)
- Verb phrase (e.g. analyzed this sentence)
- Adjective phrase (e.g. very difficult)
- Adverb phrase (e.g. rather successfully)
- Prepositional phrase (e.g. in this room)
Clauses need to have a predication marked with a finite verb phrase. They can be:
- Independent (e.g. the students passed the exam)
- Dependent (e.g. although it was very difficult)
Sentences require at least one predication. They can be:
- Simple (e.g. The students passed the exam.)
- Compound (e.g. The students worked hard and passed the exam.)
- Complex (If the students work hard, they will pass the exam.)
Rank-shifting is a process when a higher-level unit is built into a lower-level unit (e.g. The
students who work hard will pass the exam. Here we can see a clause within a noun phrase).

Parsing is the process of resolving a construction into its component parts and describing them
grammatically.
A construction is not just a simple liner order of words, it is a hierarchical structure.
Immediate Constituent Analysis (ICA) consists of identifying parts of a construction in a way
which reflects the hierarchical structure and dividing a construction into two parts (i.e.
immediate constituents) until the level of individual words (ultimate constituents) is reached.
There are three ways of representing the order of the segmentation in syntactic ICA:
- Bracketing
- Branching tree diagram
- Vertical segmentation

ICA. Constituency Tests.

Constituency tests are used to identify the constituent structure of a construction. There is a
number of different constituency tests:
- Substitution (a constituent can be substituted by a single word)
- Movement (e.g. clefting or passivization; a constituent retains its integrity when moved)
- The stand-alone test (a constituent can stand alone as an answer to a question)
- Coordination (a constituent can be expanded by means of coordination)

ICA. Syntactic Ambiguity.

One of the main challenges one can face when applying ICA is ambiguity. There are multiple
sources of syntactic ambiguity:
- Double genitive (The son of Pharaohs daughter is the daughter of Pharaohs son.)
- Multiple ambiguity (The old lady hit the man with a stick.)
- Constructional homonymy (Here even the ICA doesnt differ; Students like visiting
professors.)
- Ellipsis (A friend in need is a friend indeed.)
- The scope of comparison (He loves his dog more than his children.)
- The scope of negation (He doesnt beat his wife because he loves her.)
- The scope of coordination (He saw a woman carrying a small baby and a young
policeman.)
- Interface of lexical and syntactic ambiguity (The wind blew down the chimney.)

Construction Types.
There are two main criteria of classifying constructions:
- According to the level of syntactic structure (phrase, clause, sentence)
- According to the kind of grammatical relation between its constituents (construction
types: endocentric and exocentric)
In endocentric constructions, at least one constituent (i.e. the center) behaves as the syntactic
equivalent of the whole construction (e.g. wise men, their dreams, always follow their dreams).
In exocentric constructions, no constituent behaves as the syntactic equivalent of the whole
construction (wise men follow their dreams, follow their dreams).
Endocentric constructions can be coordinate (when there is more than one center) or subordinate
(when only one constituent is a center, and the other one is an attribute). Coordinate endocentric
constructions can be additive (e.g. gin and tonic, he wrote a book and she translated it, got up and
left the room), alternative (vodka or whisky, should I stay or should I go), and appositive (Queen
Elisabeth, Professor Crystal). Subordinate endocentric constructions can be divided by AttributeCenter position:
- Attribute 1st (young people; very clever; if he comes, we will leave)

- Center 1st (e.g. Secretary General; afraid of the dark; we will leave, because its late)
- Discontinuous attribute (e.g. too good to be true; a better idea than yours)
- Discontinuous center (has hardly managed; can never know)
They can also be divided by the attribute-center number:
- 1 attribute, more centers (old men and women)
- 1 center, more attributed (all this fresh milk on the table)
Exocentric constructions can be directive (objective: wrote a book; prepositional: without any
trouble; conjunctive: if you like), connective (is an actress; became popular), predicative (All
men are equal. Love hurts.)

Structural-Functional
Structure.

Analysis.

Elements

of

Phrase/Clause/Sentence

Structural-Functional Analysis takes a closer look at the functions of the elements of a

sentence/clause/phrase structure.
Example: Her sister bought a lovely dress during the lunch break.
Sent S + P
S NP
NP Det + H
Det Detposs Her
H N sister
P VP
VP Vtr + DO + AM
Vtr bought
DO NP
NP Det + M + H
Det Artindef a
M Adj lovely
H N dress
AM PreP
PreP Prep + NP
Prep during
NP Det + M + H
Det Artdef the
M N lunch
H N Break

Elements of Clause and Sentence Structure.

As we have already said, clauses can be independent (Sent S + P) or dependent (Cl (conn
+) S + P). Sentences, on the other hand, can be simple (= independent clause; Sent S + P),
compound (Sent Cl1 + conn + Cl2), and complex (Sent AM + S + P).
Multiple clause coordination (compound sentences) and subordination (complex sentences) can
be done in two ways:
- Syndetic (linked; conn)
- Asyndetic (unlinked)