Linguistic-related areas

Phonetics and phonology are concerned with the study of speech sounds. Within psycholinguistics, research focuses on how the brain processes and understands these sounds.

Morphology is the study of word structures, especially the relationships between related words (such as dog and dogs) and the formation of words based on rules (such as plural formation).

Syntax is the study of the patterns which dictate how words are combined together to form sentences.

Semantics deals with the meaning of words and sentences. Where syntax is concerned with the formal structure of sentences, semantics deals with the actual meaning of sentences.

Pragmatics is concerned with the role of context in the interpretation of meaning.

What is Syntax??

The word syntax derives from the Greek word syntaxis, which means arrangement; deals with phrase and sentence formation out of words.

The forms that English words may be given and the sequences in which they are arranged with other words to express larger, more complex meanings make up the syntactic pattern or system of English.

What is a sentence??

A hierarchically organized structure of words that maps sound to meaning and vice versa.

The traditional, or common sense definition states that a sentence is a group of words that expresses a thought . 

The grammatical definition of the sentence is the largest unit to which syntactic rules can apply. 

Some sentence types make no internal syntactic structure; there is no distinction between subject and predicate:

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a) Emotive sentences such as Gee! Wow. Darn! Yes! No!

b) Imperatives: Go! Leave! Taxi! All aboard!  Down with alcohol!

c) Elliptic sentences: Who took the car?  John.

d) small talk phrases: Hello. Good-bye. Good morning.

Types of sentences

a simple sentence contains at least one subject and one predicate: John read Pushkin.

a compound sentence is two or more simple sentences joined into a single sentence:  John read Pushkin and Mary read Updike.    They may be joined by a coordinating conjunction such as and or or, or asyndetically (without a conjunction).

a complex sentence is a sentence in which one of the syntactic roles is played by an embedded sentence:  I made students read Chomsky.  The simple sentence students read Chomsky plays the role of object of the verb made.  Because the syntax of the two parts of a complex sentence is intertwined, it is often not possible to divide them into two free-standing simple sentences.   *I made.  Students read Chomsky.  I saw Mary run. 

Sentence and clause

Syntax is concerned with the way words combine to from sentences.

sentence = largest unit of syntax; (intuitively understood concept) „a syntactically related group of words that expresses an assertion, a question, a command, a wish or an exclamation“ usually begins with a capital letter and ends with a period, question or exclamation mark.

clause = basic syntactic construction consisting of a subject and a predicate; occurs as main, co-ordinated or subordinated clause.

phrase= a word or a group of words without a subject and predicate but functioning as a unit in a sentence

word = smallest unit of syntax; (intuitively understood concept)

Ambiguity

Two kinds of ambiguity:

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She called her (boyfriend (from Australia)). STRUCTURAL AMBIGUITY

We went down to the bank yesterday LEXICAL AMBIGUITY

Parts of Speech:

Syntactic classes of words are traditionally called parts of speech.  English has the following parts of speech: verb, noun, adjective, adverb, pronoun, preposition, articles, interjections 

major word classes: V, N (and pronouns), Adj, Adv, Prep

minor word classes: subordinators, coordinators, determinative, numeral,

Major parts-of-speech are marked for the HEAD feature

Levels of description

Word classes

noun: bird, freedom, uncle, walk, Henry, farmer, sand verb: walk, swim, cycle, ride, consider, think, perceive, write

adjective: blue, exhausted, painful, big, strong, powerful

adverb: hard, hardly, happily, very, however, up, merely

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preposition: in, on, at, under, after, amongst, like, since

coordinator: and, but, or, nor

subordinator: that, because although, since

pronoun: we, her, mine, his, who, someone, which

article: the, a, an

numeral: three, third

interjection: oops, , wow

Noun: Person, place, or thing Verb: Action, occurrence or state of being

Adjective: modifier that expresses quality, quantity or extent.

Adverb: modifier that expresses manner, quality, place, time, degree, number, cause, opposition, affirmation or denial

Preposition: modifier that indicates location or origin.

Subject, object, predicate and predicator name syntactic functions which are realized by a certain type of word, or a phrase, or a type of clause.

Phrases

We analyse sentences as consisting of smaller units (constituents) which are called phrases.

Phrases-consists at least of one word but may contain other phrases

Phrases have constituents

constituents have functions

constituents have realizations

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Diagramming sentences, how to deal with ambiguity

Parsing using parentheses to show syntactic relations can disambiguate such a phrase as: old men and women

CONSTITUENCY

ConstituencyConstituencyCONSTITUENTa group of words in a sentence that behave syntactically and semantically as a unit.

scratched the dog with a stick scratched the dog with a stick

dog has stick I have stick

Criteria for Word Classes

We use a combination of three criteria for determining the word class of a word:    

1. The meaning of the word  2. The form or `shape' of the word  3. The position or `environment' of the word in a sentence

  

1. MeaningUsing this criterion, we generalize about the kind of meanings that words convey. For example, we could group together the words brother and car, as well as David, house, and London, on the basis that they all refer to people, places, or things. In fact, this has traditionally been a popular approach to determining members of the class of nouns. It has also been applied to verbs, by saying that they denote some kind of "action", like cook, drive, eat, run, shout, walk. 

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This approach has certain merits, since it allows us to determine word classes by replacing words in a sentence with words of "similar" meaning. 

On the basis of this replacement test, we can conclude that all of these words belong to the same class. 

However, this approach also has some serious limitations. The definition of a noun as a word denoting a person, place, or thing, is wholly inadequate, since it excludes abstract nouns such as time, imagination, repetition, wisdom, and chance. Similarly, to say that verbs are "action" words excludes a verb like be, as in I want to be happy. What "action" does be refer to here? So although this criterion has a certain validity when applied to some words, we need other, more stringent criteria as well. 

  

2. The form or `shape' of a wordSome words can be assigned to a word class on the basis of their form or `shape'. For example, many nouns have a characteristic -tion ending:    Similarly, many adjectives end in -able or -ible:   

  Many words also take what are called INFLECTIONS, that is, regular changes in their form under certain conditions. For example, nouns can take a plural inflection, usually by adding an -s at the end:    Verbs also take inflections:   

walk -- walks -- walked -- walking   

3. The position or `environment' of a word in a sentenceThis criterion refers to where words typically occur in a sentence, and the kinds of words which typically occur near to them. We can illustrate the use of this criterion using a simple example. Compare the following:   

[1] I cook dinner every Sunday  [2] The cook is on holiday

  Notice that we can replace verbs with verbs, and nouns with nouns, but we cannot replace verbs with nouns or nouns with verbs.    

   Open and Closed Word Classes

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Some word classes are OPEN, that is, new words can be added to the class as the need arises. The class of nouns, for instance, is potentially infinite, since it is continually being expanded as new scientific discoveries are made, new products are developed, and new ideas are explored .New verbs have also been introduced.

The adjective and adverb classes can also be expanded by the addition of new words, though less prolifically. 

On the other hand, we never invent new prepositions, determiners, or conjunctions. These classes include words like of, the, and but. They are called CLOSED word classes because they are made up of finite sets of words which are never expanded (though their members may change their spelling, for example, over long periods of time). The subclass of pronouns, within the open noun class, is also closed. 

Words in an open class are known as open-class items. Words in a closed class are known as closed-class items.  

In this section we will be looking at PHRASES.   

Defining a Phrase 

When we looked at nouns and pronouns, we said that a pronoun can sometimes replace a noun in a sentence. One of the examples we used was this: 

[Children] should watch less television

~[They] should watch less television 

Here it is certainly true that the pronoun they replaces the noun children. But consider: 

[The children] should watch less television

~[They] should watch less television 

In this example, they does not replace children. Instead, it replaces the children, which is a unit consisting of a determiner and a noun. We refer to this unit as a NOUN PHRASE (NP), and we define it as any unit in which the central element is a noun.

So instead of saying that pronouns can replace nouns, it is more accurate to say that they can replace noun phrases. 

We refer to the central element in a phrase as the HEAD of the phrase. In the noun phrase the children, the Head is children.

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Noun phrases do not have to contain strings of words. In fact, they can contain just one word, such as the word children in children should watch less television. This is also a phrase, though it contains only a Head. At the level of word class, of course, we would call children a plural, common noun. But in a phrase-level analysis, we call children on its own a noun phrase. This is not simply a matter of terminology -- we call it a noun phrase because it can be expanded to form longer strings which are more clearly noun phrases.

The Basic Structure of a Phrase

Phrases consist minimally of a Head. This means that in a one-word phrase like [children], the Head is children. In longer phrases, a string of elements may appear before the Head:

pre-Head string Head post-Head string

[the small children in class 5]

   

Of these three parts, only the Head is obligatory. It is the only part which cannot be omitted from the phrase.

When the Head is omitted, we're left with an incomplete phrase (*the small in class five). This provides a useful method of identifying the Head of a phrase.

Just as a noun functions as the Head of a noun phrase, a verb functions as the Head of a verb phrase, and an adjective functions as the Head of an adjective phrase, and so on. We recognise five phrase types in all: 

 

Phrase Type Head Example

Noun Phrase Noun [the children in class 5]

Verb Phrase Verb [play the piano]

Adjective Phrase Adjective [delighted to meet you]

Adverb Phrase Adverb [very quickly]

Prepositional Phrase Preposition [in the garden]

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Noun Phrase (NP)

As we've seen, a noun phrase has a noun as its Head. Determiners and adjective phrases usually constitute the pre-Head string. In theory at least, the post-Head string in an NP can be indefinitely long.

The Head of an NP does not have to be a common or a proper noun. This means that pronouns, too, can function as the Head of an NP.

If the Head is a pronoun, the NP will generally consist of the Head only. This is because pronouns do not take determiners or adjectives, so there will be no pre-Head string. However, with some pronouns, there may be a post-Head string:

[NP Those who arrive late] cannot be admitted until the interval

Similarly, numerals, as a subclass of nouns, can be the Head of an NP:

[NP Two of my guests] have arrived[NP The first to arrive] was John

Noun Phrases (NP)Noun Phrases (NP)

NPNP

DD APAP APAP NNthe the slippersslippers

A AA Apinkpink fluffyfluffy

NP (D) (AP+) N

 

Verb Phrase (VP)

In a VERB PHRASE (VP), the Head is always a verb. The pre-Head string, if any, will be a `negative' word such as not or never, or an adverb phrase.

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Many verb Heads must be followed by a post-Head string:

My son [VP made a cake] -- (compare: *My son made)We [VP keep pigeons] -- (compare: *We keep)I [VP recommend the fish] -- (compare: *I recommend)

Verbs which require a post-Head string are called TRANSITIVE verbs. The post-Head string, in these examples, is called the DIRECT OBJECT.

In contrast, some verbs are never followed by a direct object:

Susan [VP smiled]The professor [VP yawned]

These are known as INTRANSITIVE VERBS.

However, most verbs in English can be both transitive and intransitive, so it is perhaps more accurate to refer to transitive and intransitive uses of a verb. The following examples show the two uses of the same verb:

Intransitive: David smokes Transitive: David smokes cigars

Verb Phrases (VP)Verb Phrases (VP)

VP VP (AP+) V ({NP/S}) (PP+) (AP+)(AP+) V ({NP/S}) (PP+) (AP+)

VP

AP V NP PP PP

A got D N P NP P NP

frequently his buckets from D N for D Nthe store a dollar

Adjective Phrase (AP)

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In an ADJECTIVE PHRASE (AP), the Head word is an adjective. Here are some examples:

Susan is [AP clever]]My sister is [AP fond of animals]

The pre-Head string in an AP is most commonly an adverb phrase such as very or extremely. Adjective Heads may be followed by a post-Head string:

[AP happy to meet you][AP afraid of the dark]

A small number of adjective Heads must be followed by a post-Head string. The adjective Head fond is one of these. Compare:

My sister is [AP fond of animals] *My sister is [fond]

 

Adjective/Adverb Phrases (APs)Adjective/Adverb Phrases (APs)

A situation easily confused:A situation easily confused: The big yellow balloonThe big yellow balloon The very yellow balloonThe very yellow balloon

•• What does What does ““bigbig”” modify? What does modify? What does ‘‘veryvery’’modify?modify?

NP

D AP AP Nthe balloon

A Abig yellow

NP

D AP Nthe balloon

AP

A Avery yellow

Adverb Phrase (AdvP)

In an ADVERB PHRASE, the Head word is an adverb. Most commonly, the pre-Head string is another adverb phrase:

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He graduated [AdvP very recently]She left [AdvP quite suddenly]

In AdvPs, there is usually no post-Head string, but here's a rare example:

[AdvP Unfortunately for him], his wife came home early

 

Prepositional Phrase (PP)

PREPOSITIONAL PHRASES usually consist of a Head -- a preposition -- and a post-Head string only. Here are some examples:

[PP through the window] [PP over the bar]

This makes PPs easy to recognise -- they nearly always begin with a preposition (the Head). A pre-Head string is rarely present, but here are some examples:

[PP straight through the window][PP right over the bar][PP just after midnight]

Prepositional Phrases (PPs)Prepositional Phrases (PPs)

These generally consist of a These generally consist of a Preposition and an NP:Preposition and an NP:

up the roadup the road on the video screenon the video screen under the avocadounder the avocado PPPPPP NPNP PP

P NPunder

D Nthe avocado

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Phrases within Phrases

All but the simplest phrases will contain smaller phrases within them. Here's an example:

[PP across [NP the road]]

So far we have been looking at phrases more or less in isolation. In real use, of course, they occur in isolation only in very restricted circumstances. For example, we find isolated NPs in public signs and notices:

[Exit],[Sale],[Restricted Area],[Hyde Park]

We sometimes use isolated phrases in spoken English, especially in responses to questions:

Q: What would you like to drink?A: [NP Coffee]

Q: Where did you park the car?A: [PP Behind the house]

In more general use, however, phrases are integrated into longer units, which we call CLAUSES:

Q: What would you like to drink?A: [I'd like coffee]

Q: Where did you park the car?A: [I parked the car behind the house]

Form and Function of the Clause in English

A clause is a group of related words that contain a subject and predicate.

Note the difference between phrases and clauses in the following examples:

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Clause is the basic unit of meaning in English:

conveys a message can provide information about

what is happening (verb group)

who, what is taking part (participant – usually a noun group)

when, where, how, why surrounding the activity (circumstance)

can be identified by the presence of a single verb or verb group.

Words and phrases are the constituents of the clause rank. In order to discuss the constituents of the clause, it is necessary to refer to the units smaller than the clause itself. Consider the following example, in which we can see that a single clause is composed of smaller units of the phrase rank.

From our discussion of the phrase rank, we also know that we can categorize the constituents of that clause into the appropriate phrase type.

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Furthermore, we also know that each phrase can be subcategorized into its constituent parts.

The diagram above, however, looks at the constituents of the clause only from the perspective of the constituents' forms. We should remember that those forms also serve functions, just as the forms at the phrase rank can also be described according to the functions they served within their phrases. Essentially the clause can be divided into eight functional constituents, grouped into five categories:

Functional Categories Eight Clause Functions

(1) Subject [1] Subject

(2) Verb [2] Verb

(3) Objects [3] Direct Object

[4] Indirect Object

(4) Complements [5] Object Complement

[6] Subject Complement

(5) Adverbials [7] Adverbial Complement

[8] Adverbial

At the clause rank, the constituents marked in the example sentence above serve four different clause functions: subject (S) as in The news, verb (V) as in has been, subject complement (SC) as in quite sad, and adverbial (A) as in in fact. We use the following abbreviations for the other four clause functions: direct object (DO), indirect object (IO), object complement (OC), and adverbial complement (AC). The examples below illustrates some other clause patterns that are possible in English.

1. Liz (S) is resting (V) quietly (A) in the other room (A).

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2. The mind (S) is (V) immensely complex (SC). 3. The children (S) were (V) here (AC) all morning (A). 4. Emily (S) is playing (V) cards (O) with her sister (A). 5. Early next week (A), the President (S) will send (V) Congress (IO) his budget

(DO). 6. Clearly (A), the committee (S) considers (V) her (DO) the best (OC). 7. Once again (A), I (S) will put (V) the book (DO) away (AC).

When we look at the examples, we notice that each clause has a different arrangement of functional elements, but there are some patterns too. First, we notice that while the different clauses have different arrangements of objects, complements, and adverbials, each clause consistently has a subject and verb. Thus, in the declarative clause, we call the functions of subject and verb the 'central' functions while objects, complements, and adverbials are the 'peripheral' functions. We also notice that adverbials are 'optional' when compared to the other clause constituents.

Some Examples of the Seven Clause Patterns in English

S V IO DO SC OC AC

SV Liz is resting

SVC The mind is complex

SVA The kids were here

SVO Emily is playing cards

SVOO Clinton will send Congress his budget

SVOC We consider her the best

SVOA I will put the book away

This set of patterns is the most general classification that can be usefully applied to the English clause. Correlating with the seven clause patterns are the three main types of verbs:

intransitive verbs, followed by no obligatory constituents, as in SV pattern above;

copular verbs, followed by a SC or AC, as in the SVC and SVA patterns above; and

transitive verbs, followed by an object, as in the SVO, SVOO, SVOC, and SVOA patterns above.

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To conclude this outline of the basic clause patterns, we need to understand the principles by which the functional constituents of the clause are identified. Although the categories of S, V, DO, IO, OC, SC, AC, and A are functional constituents, they are identifiable by both formal and functional criteria.

INDEPENDENT AND DEPENDENT CLAUSES

An independent clause  contains a subject, a verb, and a complete thought.

1. Can stand on its own and convey a message2. Is always finite – ie has a Subject (unless in the imperative form)

A dependent clause contains a subject and a verb, but no complete thought.

If I am going to be late (Dependent), I will ring you (Independent).

Main vs. embedded/subordinate clauseIt is important to note that a subordinate clause always expands an element of another clause (or in some cases a phrase). Consequently the subordinate clause should be viewed as a subset of a clause, and not as being separate from it (as are coordinate clauses). This is why they are also referred to as embedded clauses. This idea is best demonstrated by means of a diagram:

 

   

Subordinate Clause Types

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Subordinate clauses may be finite or nonfinite. Within this broad classification, we can make many further distinctions. We will begin by looking at subordinate clauses which are distinguished by their formal characteristics.

Many subordinate clauses are named after the form of the verb which they contain:

TO-INFINITIVE CLAUSE:

You must book early [to secure a seat]

BARE INFINITIVE CLAUSE:

They made [the professor forget his notes]

-ING PARTICIPLE CLAUSE:

His hobby is [collecting old photographs]

-ED PARTICIPLE CLAUSE:

[Rejected by his parents], the boy turned to a life of crime

For convenience, we sometimes name a clause after its first element:

IF-CLAUSE:

I'll be there at nine [if I catch the early train]

As we'll see on the next page, if-clauses are sometimes called conditional clauses.

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THAT-CLAUSE:

David thinks [that we should have a meeting]

The that element is sometimes ellipted:

David thinks [we should have a meeting]

Relative Clauses

An important type of subordinate clause is the RELATIVE CLAUSE.

The man [who lives beside us] is illThe video [which you recommended] was terrific

Relative clauses are generally introduced by a relative pronoun, such as who, or which. However, the relative pronoun may be ellipted:

The video [you recommended] was terrific

Another variant, the REDUCED RELATIVE CLAUSE, has no relative pronoun, and the verb is nonfinite:

The man [living beside us] is ill (Compare: The man [who lives beside us]...)

Nominal Relative Clauses

NOMINAL RELATIVE CLAUSES (or independent relatives) function in some respects like noun phrases:

[What I like best] is football (cf. the sport I like best...)

The prize will go to [whoever submits the best design] (cf. the person who submits...)

My son is teaching me [how to use email] (cf. the way to use email)

This is [where Shakespeare was born] (cf. the place where...)

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The similarity with NPs can be further seen in the fact that certain nominal relatives exhibit number contrast:

Singular: [What we need] is a planPlural: [What we need] are new ideas Notice the agreement here with is (singular) and are (plural).

Small Clauses

Finally, we will mention briefly an unusual type of clause, the verbless or SMALL CLAUSE. While clauses usually contain a verb, which is finite or nonfinite, small clauses lack an overt verb:

Susan found [the job very difficult]

We analyse this as a unit because clearly its parts cannot be separated. What Susan found was not the job, but the job very difficult. And we analyse this unit specifically as a clause because we can posit an implicit verb, namely, a form of the verb be:

Susan found [the job (to be) very difficult]

Here are some more examples of small clauses:

Susan considers [David an idiot]The jury found [the defendant guilty][Lunch over], the guests departed quickly

All of the clause types discussed here are distinguished by formal characteristics. On the next page, we will distinguish some more types, this time on the basis of their meaning.

Subordinate Clauses: Semantic Types

Here we will look at subordinate clauses from the point of view of their meaning. The main semantic types are exemplified in the following table:

Subordinate Clause Type

Example

Temporal I'll ring you again [before I leave]I read the newspaper [while I was waiting]

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Conditional I'll be there at nine [if I can catch the early train][Provided he works hard], he'll do very well at schoolDon't call me [unless its an emergency]

Concessive He bought me a lovely gift, [although he can't really afford it]

[While I don't agree with her], I can understand her viewpoint

Reason Paul was an hour late [because he missed the train]I borrowed your lawn mower, [since you weren't using it][As I don't know the way], I'll take a taxi

Result The kitchen was flooded, [so we had to go to a restaurant]I've forgotten my password, [so I can't read my email]

Comparative This is a lot more difficult [than I expected]She earns as much money [as I do]I think London is less crowded [than it used to be]

The table does not cover all the possible types, but it does illustrate many of the various meanings which can be expressed by subordinate clauses.

Notice that the same word can introduce different semantic types. For instance, the word while can introduce a temporal clause:

I read the newspaper [while I was waiting]

or a concessive clause:

[While I don't agree with her], I can understand her viewpoint.

Similarly, the word since can express time:

I've known him [since he was a child]

as well as reason:

I borrowed your lawn mower, [since you weren't using it]

SENTENCES

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Most people recognise a sentence as a unit which begins with a capital letter and ends with a full stop (period), a question mark, or an exclamation mark. Of course, this applies only to written sentences. Sentences have also been defined notionally as units which express a "complete thought", though it is not at all clear what a "complete thought" is.

It is more useful to define a sentence syntactically, as a unit which consists of one or more clauses. According to this definition, the following examples are all sentences:

[1] Paul likes football

[2] You can borrow my pen if you need one

[3] Paul likes football and David likes chess

Sentence [1] is a SIMPLE SENTENCE -- it contains only one clause.

Sentence [2] consists of a matrix clause You can borrow my pen if you need one, and a subordinate clause if you need one. This is called a COMPLEX SENTENCE. A complex sentence is defined as a sentence which contains at least one subordinate clause.

Finally, sentence [3] consists of two clauses which are coordinated with each other. This is a COMPOUND sentence.

By using subordination and coordination, sentences can potentially be infinitely long, but in all cases we can analyse them as one or more clauses.

COMMUNICATIVE SENTENCESTHE DISCOURSE FUNCTIONS OF SENTENCES

Sentences may be classified according to their use in discourse. We recognise four main sentence types:

Exclamative

An exclamative or exclamatory sentence is released because of, and expresses strong emotion. They many times feel like involuntary reactions to a situation In punctuation, an exclamative is ended with an exclamation mark.

Ouch, that hurt! Fantastic! I'll never finish this paper in time!

Exclamative sentence can begin with "what" or "how"

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What a naughty dog he is! What an amazing game that was! How well everyone played!

Imperative

An imperative sentence gives anything from a command or order, to a request, a suggestion, direction, or instruction

Imperative sentences are a little more intentional than exclamatory sentences and do require an audience; as their aim is to get the person(s) being spoken to to either do or not do something

Look at me!

Imperative clausesThe basic structure of the imperative consists of the predicator alone:

Sit down!Typically, imperatives has no subject; when a subject is added, the result is marked form . You sit down and I’ll stand. You keep quiet!

Sit down, will you? Be a bit more careful, can’t you?

Imperative: Indicative------------------------------------------------------

Somebody call a doctor Sombody calls a doctor. Nobody say a word! Nobody says a word. Negative imperative structures: Don’t say a word.

Declarative

In its most basic sense, a declarative states an idea (either objectively or subjectively on the part of the speaker) for the sheer purpose of transferring information to the receiver. In writing, a statement will end with a period.

Form/meaning

Semantically, a declarative structure is used to express a statement and is accompanied by falling intonation. It’s raining. \ If spoken with rising intonation, it will be interpreted as a question. It’s raining. /

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A clause which is declarative but which contains a displaced WH-element, will have the force of a question:And in the end you left them where?So you took the documents to which Ministry?

Would like, must, am afraid I have to, ...I must beg you not to tell anyone about this.

Interrogative

An interrogative sentence asks a question and therefore ends with a question mark. Its effort is to try and gather information that is previously unknown to the interrogator, or to seek validation for a preconceived notion held Is David gay?

o They typically begin with a question word such as what, who, or how, or an auxiliary verb such as do/does, can or would.

o Do you speak French?o Will you go to the supermarket for me?o How can I do that?

TYPES OF OF INTERROGATIVE SENTENCES.

There are four types of interrogative sentences.

Yes/No Interrogatives

Yes/No questions usually will be answered by yes or no.

Alternative Interrogatives

Alternative interrogativse offer two or more alternative responses:

Should I telephone you or send an email? Do you want bear, wine, or wisky?

Yes/no interrogatives and alternative interrogatives are introduced by an auxiliary verb.Wh- Interrogatives

Wh- Interrogatives are introduced by a wh- word, and they elicit an open-ended response:

What happened?

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Tag QuestionsThey are sometimes tagged onto the end of a declarative sentence.

David plays the piano, doesn't he?

Rhetorical question

A rhetorical question is a figure of speech in the form of a question posed for its persuasive effect without the expectation of a reply (ex: "Why me?")Rather, it is a device used by the speaker to assert or deny something.

Interrogative structures are either positive or negative: Have you accepted the job? Haven’t you accepted the job?

The questions expressed by interrogative structures can be oriented according to the kind of answer the speaker expects, and are said to have NEUTRAL, POSITIVE OR NEGATIVE ORINETATION.

This is achieved by the addition of non-assertive forms (any, anybody, evr, yet), assertive forms (some, somebody, always, already) and negative forms (nobody, no, never)

A neutral attitude is expressed by a positive interrogative togther with non-assertive forms: Have you ever been to India. Do you know anyone in Brighton?

A positive orientation is given by adding assertive forms to the positive interrogative:Do you know someone in Brighton?Declarative negative: Nobody has given back their books.Interrogative negative: Has nobody given back their books?

DECLARATIVE VS. AFFIRMATIVE VS. POSITIVE

A declarative statement should not be deemed synonymous with an affirmative one. This is because although a declarative statement can state facts (given that the speaker is not consciously lying), it can also express something which is not true. Therefore, a declarative can be either in the affirmative or in the negative, and we can say that, Joanna is late and Joanna is not late, both technically qualify as declarative sentences. Declarative refers to a sentence's function or purpose, while affirmative and negative deal with a sentence's grammatical polarity, which is why the different terms can overlap simultaneously.

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Positive in linguistic terms refers to the degree of the quality of an adjective or adverb (along with the comparative and superlative), while affirmative refers to the perceived validity of the entire sentence.

GRAMMATICAL POLARITY

Grammatical polarity is the distinction of affirmative and negative, which indicates the truth or falsehood of a statement respectively. In English, grammatical polarity is generally indicated by the presence or absence of the modifier not, which negates the statement. In many languages, rather than inflecting the verb, negation is expressed by adding a particle: Standard English usually adds the auxiliary verb do, and then adds not after it: "I did not go there".

In grammar, negation is the process that turns an affirmative statement (I am the chicken) into its opposite denial (I am not the chicken). Nouns as well as verbs can be grammatically negated, by the use of a negative adjective (There is no chicken), a negative pronoun (Nobody is the chicken), or a negative adverb (I never was the chicken).

NUCLEUR NEGATIVES

Many negative declarative structures can be formed in two ways:1. By negating the Finite element (aren’t waitng, don’t care) or the non-finite verb in a

dependent clause (not expecting a reply)2. By negating a non-verbal element:

Nobody knows. She felt no pain. Neither parent was informed. Not much whisky was left. Elephants never forget.

ASSERTION AND NON-ASSERTION

In English, rather than distinguishing simply between positive and negative forms, we must establish a distinction between assertive and non-assertive forms.

Assertive words such as SOME, SOMEONE, SOMEWHERE occur typically in assertive contexts. These are expressed by positive declarative clauses.

Non-assertive words such as ANY, ANYONE, ANYTHING, EVER occur in contextas which are non-positive> interrogative, and negative clauses

ASSERTIVE FORMS: We have some very good coffee. I’ve left my car keys somewhere.

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NON-ASSERTIVE FORMS: Have you any good coffee? Have youn seen my glasses anywhere? Take any you like! No-one said anything. Didn’t you say anything? (interrogative-negative clause) Did you say anything?

DOUBLE NEGATION

Standard national forms of English do not favour multiple negation, that is, a successtion of nucleur negative items in one clause.Instead, the first negative item is followed throughout the rest of the clause by one or more non-assertive forms, such as ANY, EITHER, EVER, etc. We are not going anywhere with either of our parents. I haven’t said anything to anybody yet. He hardly ever writes Christmas cards to anyone any more.

POSITIVE STRUCTURES/Negative 1/Negative 2 There’s some bread left. There isn’t any bread left. There is no bread left.

He met someone at the pub He didn’t meet anyone at the pub. He met no-one at the pub.

I know something about it. I don’t know anything about it. I know nothing about it.

THE GRAMMATICAL HIERARCHY: WORDS, PHRASES, CLAUSES, AND SENTENCES

Words, phrases, clauses, and sentences constitute what is called the GRAMMATICAL HIERARCHY. We can represent this schematically as follows:

sentences clauses phrases

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words

Sentences are at the top of the hierarchy, so they are the largest unit which we will be considering (though some grammars do look beyond the sentence). At the other end of the hierarchy, words are at the lowest level, though again, some grammars go below the word to consider morphology, the study of how words are constructed.

At the clause level and at the phrase level, two points should be noted:

1. Although clauses are higher than phrases in the hierarchy, clauses can occur within phrases, as we've already seen:

The man who lives beside us is ill

2. We've also seen that clauses can occur within clauses, and phrases can occur within phrases.

Bearing these two points in mind, we can now illustrate the grammatical hierarchy using the following sentence:

My brother won the lottery This is a simple sentence (S), consisting of a matrix clause (MC).

[S/MC [NP [Det My] [N brother]] [VP [V won] [NP [Det the] [N lottery]]]]

Each of the bracketed units here is a word, a phrase, or a clause. We refer to these as CONSTITUENTS. A constituent is defined as a word or a group of words which acts syntactically as a unit.

A tree diagram is a visual representation of syntactic structure, in which the grammatical hierarchy is graphically displayed. Here's the tree diagram for our sentence, My brother won the lottery:

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FORM AND FUNCTION

We saw that the form or "shape" of a word is often a good clue to its word class.

When we looked at phrases, too, we were concerned with their form. We said that phrases may have the basic form (Pre-Head string) - Head - (Post-Head string).

And finally, we classified clauses according to the form (finite or nonfinite) of their main verb.

In all of these cases, we were conducting a FORMAL analysis. Form denotes how something looks -- its shape or appearance, and what its structure is. When we say that the old man is an NP, or that the old man bought a newspaper is a finite clause, we are carrying out a formal analysis.

We can also look at constituents -- phrases and clauses -- from another angle. We can examine the FUNCTIONs which they perform in the larger structures which contain them. 

SUBJECT AND PREDICATE

The most familiar grammatical function is the SUBJECT. In notional terms, we can think of the Subject as the element which performs the "action" denoted by the verb:

[1] David plays the piano

[2] The police interviewed all the witnesses

In these terms, this means that we can identify the Subject by asking a wh-question.

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Having identified the Subject, we can see that the remainder of the sentence tells us what the Subject does or did. In [1], for example, plays the piano tells us what David does. We refer to this string as the PREDICATE of the sentence. In [2], the Predicate is interviewed all the witnesses.

Here are some more examples of sentences labelled for Subject and Predicate.

 

Subject Predicate

The lion  roared

He writes well

She enjoys going to the cinema

The girl in the blue dress arrived late

 

In each of these examples, the Subject performs the action described in the Predicate. We've seen, however, that there are problems in defining verbs as "action" words, and for the same reasons, there are problems in defining the Subject as the "performer" of the action. The Subject in John seems unhappy is John, but we would hardly say he is performing an action. For this reason, we need to define the Subject more precisely than this. We will look at the characteristics of the Subject on the next page.

Characteristics of the subject

1. Subject-Verb Inversion

In a declarative sentence, the Subject comes before the verb:

When we change this into a yes/no interrogative, the Subject and the verb change places with each other:

If an auxiliary verb is present, however, the Subject changes places with the auxiliary:

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Declarative: Jim has left alreadyInterrogative: Has Jim left already?

In this interrogative, the Subject still comes before the main verb, but after the auxiliary. This is true also of interrogatives with a do-auxiliary:

Subject-verb inversion is probably the most reliable method of identifying the Subject of a sentence.

2. Position of the Subject

In a declarative sentence, the Subject is usually the first constituent:

Jim was in bedWe made a donation to charity

However, there are exceptions to this. For instance:

Yesterday the theatre was closed

Here, the first constituent is the adverb phrase yesterday, but this is not the Subject of the sentence. Notice that the theatre, and not yesterday, inverts with the verb in the interrogative:

Declarative: Yesterday the theatre was closedInterrogative: Yesterday was the theatre closed?

So the Subject here is the theatre, even though it is not the first constituent in the sentence.

3. Subject-verb Agreement

Subject-verb AGREEMENT or CONCORD relates to number agreement (singular or plural) between the Subject and the verb which follows it:

Singular Subject: The dog howls all nightPlural Subject: The dogs howl all night

There are two important limitations to Subject-verb agreement. Firstly, agreement only applies when the verb is in the present tense. In the past tense, there is no overt agreement between the Subject and the verb:

The dog howled all night

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The dogs howled all night

And secondly, agreement applies only to third person Subjects. There is no distinction, for example, between a first person singular Subject and a first person plural Subject:

I howl all nightWe howl all night

The concept of NOTIONAL AGREEMENT sometimes comes into play:

The government is considering the proposalThe government are considering the proposal

Here, the form of the verb is not determined by the form of the Subject. Instead, it is determined by how we interpret the Subject. In the government is..., the Subject is interpreted as a unit, requiring a singular form of the verb. In the government are..., the Subject is interpreted as having a plural meaning, since it relates to a collection of individual people. Accordingly, the verb has the plural form are.

4. Subjective Pronouns

The pronouns I, he/she/it, we, they, always function as Subjects, in contrast with me, him/her, us, them:

I left early*Me left early

The pronoun you can also be a Subject:

You left early

but it does not always perform this function. In the following example, the Subject is Tom, not you:

Tom likes you

Realisations of the Subject

In the sentence, Jim was in bed, the Subject is the NP Jim. More precisely, we say that the Subject is realised by the NP Jim. Conversely, the NP Jim is the realisation of the

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Subject in this sentence. Remember that NP is a formal term, while Subject is a functional term:

FORM FUNCTION

Noun Phrase  Subject

Subjects are typically realised by NPs. This includes NPs which have pronouns [1], cardinal numerals [2], and ordinal numerals [3] as their Head word:

[1] [We] decided to have a party[2] [One of my contacts lenses] fell on the floor[3] [The first car to reach Brighton] is the winner

However, other constituents can also function as Subjects, and we will examine these in the following sections.

Clauses functioning as Subject

Clauses can also function as Subject- Subject clauses. The table below shows examples of the major types of Subject clauses:

 

CLAUSES functioning as

SUBJECTS

EXAMPLE

Finite

That-clause[1] That his theory was flawed soon became obvious

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Nominal Relative clause

[2] What I need is a long holiday

Nonfinite

To-infinitive clause

-ing clause

[3] To become an opera singer takes years of training

[4] Being the chairman is a huge responsibility

Notice that some of these Subject clauses have Subjects of their own. In [1], the Subject clause that his theory was flawed, has its own Subject, his theory. Similarly, in [2], the Subject of what I need is I.

Among nonfinite clauses, only to-infinitive clauses and -ing participle clauses can function as Subject. Bare infinitive clauses and -ed participle clauses cannot perform this function. In the examples above -- [3] and [4] -- the nonfinite Subject clauses do not have Subjects of their own, although they can do:

[3a] For Mary to become an opera singer would take years of training

[4a] David being the chairman has meant more work for all of us

Prepositional Phrases functioning as Subject

Less commonly, the Subject may be realised by a prepositional phrase:

After nine is a good time to ring

Prepositional phrases as Subject typically refer to time or to space.

Some Unusual Subjects

Before leaving this topic, we will point out some grammatical Subjects which may at first glance be difficult to recognise as such. For example, can you work out the Subject of the following sentence?

There is a fly in my soup

As we've seen, the most reliable test for identifying the Subject is Subject-verb inversion, so let's try it here:

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Declarative: There is a fly in my soupInterrogative: Is there a fly in my soup?

The inversion test shows that the subject is there. You will recall that this is an example of existential there, and the sentence in which it is the Subject is an existential sentence.

Now try the same test on the following:

It is raining

The inversion test shows that the Subject is it:

These two examples illustrate how limited the notional definition of the Subject really is. In no sense can we say that there and it are performing an "action" in their respective sentences, and yet they are grammatically functioning as Subjects.

On this page, we've seen that the function of Subject can be realised by several different forms. Conversely, the various forms (NP, clause, PP, etc) can perform several other functions, and we will look at these in the following pages.

Inside the Predicate

Recall that the Predicate is everything apart from the Subject. So in David plays the piano, the Predicate is plays the piano. This Predicate consists of a verb phrase, and we can divide this into two further elements:

[plays] [the piano]

In formal terms, we refer to the verb as the PREDICATOR, because its function is to predicate or state something about the subject. Notice that Predicator is a functional term, while verb is a formal term:

FORM FUNCTION

Verb Predicator

However, since the Predicator is always realised by a verb, we will continue to use the more familiar term verb, even when we are discussing functions.

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The Direct Object

In the sentence David plays the piano, the NP the piano is the constituent which undergoes the "action" of being played (by David, the Subject). We refer to this constituent as the DIRECT OBJECT.

We can usually identify the Direct Object by asking who or what was affected by the Subject. For example:

We bought a new computer

Q. What did we buy?A. A new computer ( = the Direct Object)

The Direct Object generally comes after the verb, just as the Subject generally comes before it. So in a declarative sentence, the usual pattern is:

Subject -- Verb -- Direct Object

Realisations of the Direct Object

The Direct Object is most often realised by an NP. However, this function can also be realised by a clause. The following table shows examples of clauses functioning as Direct Objects:

 

CLAUSES functioning as

DIRECT OBJECTS

EXAMPLES

Finite

That-clause

Nominal relative clause

[1] He thought that he had a perfect alibi

[2] The officer described what he saw through the keyhole

Nonfinite

To-infinitive clause

Bare infinitive

[3] The dog wants to play in the garden

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clause

-ing clause

-ed clause

[4] She made the lecturer laugh

[5] Paul loves playing football

[6] I'm having my house painted

Subjects and Objects, Active and Passive

A useful way to compare Subjects and Direct Objects is to observe how they behave in active and passive sentences. Consider the following active sentence:

Active: Fire destroyed the palace

Here we have a Subject fire and a Direct Object the palace.

Now let's convert this into a passive sentence:

Passive: The palace was destroyed by fireThe change from active to passive has the following results:

1. The active Direct Object the palace becomes the passive Subject

2. The active Subject fire becomes part of the PP by fire (the by-agent phrase).

The Indirect Object

Some verbs occur with two Objects:

We gave [John] [a present]

Here, the NP a present undergoes the "action" (a present is what is given). So a present is the Direct Object. We refer to the NP John as the INDIRECT OBJECT.

Indirect Objects usually occur with a Direct Object, and they always come before the Direct Object. The typical pattern is:

Subject -- Verb -- Indirect Object -- Direct Object

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Verbs which take an Indirect Object and a Direct Object are known as DITRANSITIVE verbs. Verbs which take only a Direct Object are called MONOTRANSITIVE verbs. The verb tell is a typical ditransitive verb, but it can also be monotransitive.

Indirect Object usually co-occurs with a Direct Object. However, with some verbs an Indirect Object may occur alone:

David told the children

although we can usually posit an implicit Direct Object in such cases:

David told the children the news

Realisations of the Indirect Object

NPs are the most common realisations of the Indirect Object. It is a typical function of pronouns in the objective case, such as me, him, us, and them.

Less commonly, a clause will function as Indirect Object:

David told whoever saw her to report to the police

Adjuncts

Certain parts of a sentence may convey information about how, when, or where something happened- ADJUNCTS. From a syntactic point of view, Adjuncts are optional elements, since their omission still leaves a complete sentence.

Realisations of Adjuncts

Noun Phrases functioning as Adjuncts

David gave blood last week We've agreed to meet the day after tomorrow

NPs as Adjuncts generally refer to time, as in these examples.

Adverb Phrases functioning as Adjuncts

They ate their meal too quickly Suddenly, the door opened

Prepositional Phrases functioning as Adjuncts

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Susan went to school in New YorkI work late on Mondays

PPs as Adjuncts generally refer to time or to place -- they tell us when or where something happens.

Clauses functioning as Adjuncts

Subordinate clauses can function as Adjuncts. We'll begin with some examples of finite subordinate clauses:

 

Clausesfunctioning as

Adjuncts

EXAMPLES

Finite While we were crossing the park, we heard a loud explosion

I was late for the interview because the train broke down

If you want tickets for the concert, you have to apply early

My car broke down, so I had to walk

Nonfinite

To-infinitive clause

Bare infinitive clause

-ing clause

-ed clause

Small clause

To open the window, you have to climb a ladder

Rather than leave the child alone, I brought him to work with me

Being a qualified plumber, Paul had no difficulty in finding the leak

Left to himself, he usually gets the job done quickly

His face red with rage, John stormed out of the room

 

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You will notice that these clauses express the range of meanings that we looked at earlier (in Subordinate Clauses: Semantic Types). In all cases, notice also that the Adjuncts express additional and optional information.

SENTENCE PATTERNS FROM A FUNCTIONAL PERSPECTIVE

As we've seen, the Subject is usually (but not always) the first element in a sentence, and it is followed by the verb:

Pattern 1

Subject Verb

David sings

In this pattern, the verb is not followed by any Object, and we refer to this as an intransitive verb. If the verb is monotransitive, it takes a Direct Object, which follows the verb:

Pattern 2

Subject Verb Direct Object

The jury found the defendant guilty

  In the ditransitive pattern, the verb is followed by an Indirect Object and a Direct Object, in that order:

Pattern 3

Subject Verb Indirect Object Direct Object

The detectives  asked Amy lots of questions

Adjuncts are syntactically peripheral to the rest of the sentence. They may occur at the beginning and at the end of a sentence, and they may occur in all three of the patterns above:

Pattern 4

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Pattern 4 is essentially a conflation of the other three, with Adjuncts added. We have bracketed the Adjuncts to show that they are optional. Strictly speaking, Objects are also optional, since they are only required by monotransitive and ditransitive verbs.

Some Untypical Sentence Patterns

Extraposition

The Subject is sometimes postponed until the end of the sentence. Here are some examples:

In first place is Red RumInside the house were two detectivesMore important is the question of compensation

Here, the typical declarative order has been disrupted for stylistic effect. In these examples, the Subject comes after the verb, and is said to be EXTRAPOSEd.

The Subject is also extraposed when the sentence is introduced by anticipatory it:

It is a good idea to book early It is not surprising that he failed his exams

In the more typical pattern, these constructions may sound stylistically awkward:

To book early is a good ideaThat he failed his exams is not surprising

Extraposition is not always just a matter of style. In the following examples, it is obligatory:

It seems that he'll be late again

~*That he'll be late again seems

It turned out that his secretary had stolen the money

~*That his secretary had stolen the money turned out

Direct Objects, too, can be extraposed. Recall that their typical position is after the verb (Pattern 2). However, when anticipatory it is used, the Direct Object is extraposed:

He made it very clear that he would not be coming back

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Again, the canonical pattern is stylistically very awkward:

*He made that he would not be coming back very clear

Cleft Sentences

A declarative sentence, such as David studied English at Oxford can be reformulated as:

It was David who studied English at Oxford

This is called a CLEFT SENTENCE because the original sentence has been divided (or "cleft") into two clauses: It was David and who studied English at Oxford. Cleft sentences focus on one constituent of the original sentence, placing it after it was (or it is). Here we have focussed on the Subject David, but we could also focus on the Direct Object English:

It was English that David studied at Oxford

or on the Adjunct at Oxford

It was at Oxford that David studied English

Cleft constructions, then, exhibit the pattern:

It + be + focus + clause

Generative grammar

A generative grammar is a theory of competence: a model of the psychological system of unconscious knowledge that underlies a speaker's ability to produce and interpret utterances in a language. . . . A good way of trying to understand [Noam] Chomsky's point is to think of a generative grammar as essentially a definition of competence: a set of criteria that linguistic structures must meet to be judged acceptable. (Frank Parker and Kathryn Riley, Linguistics for Non-Linguists. Allyn and Bacon, 1994)

Noam Chomsky advocates the view that the human mind has innate ability to generate grammatical sentences, thus, all utterances deemed sensible to the speaker are necessarily grammatical. All humans, he argues, share a core of grammar that explodes into the thousands and thousands of distinct languages spoken by humans over time and place. Generative grammar ultimately suggests that the brain is like an unlabeled map, and a child's role is to assign different "paths" with particular labels.

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Universal Grammar

Noam Chomsky also proposed the theory that a kind of universal grammar, a grammar that underlies all human languages, is hard-wired in the human brain. Thus all human languages are fundamentally the same, with only superficial differences.

TRANSFORMATIONAL GENERATIVE LINGUISTICSWhich sentences do not sound right?

Chomsky considered language to be a species-specific property which is a part of the human mind. Chomsky studied the Internal-language, a mental faculty for language. He also wanted to account for the linguistic competence of native speakers and the linguistic knowledge of language present in language users’ minds. As he argued: People know which sentences are grammatically well formed in their native language. They have this knowledge also of previously unheard sentences. So they must rely on mentally represented rules and not only on memoryGenerative grammars might be regarded as models of mentally represented rulesThe ability to acquire such sets of rules is most probably uniquely human.

Moreover, Chomsky argued that people posses a kind of Language Faculty which is a part of human natural biological qualities. The innate linguistic knowledge that enables practically any child to learn any of about 6000 existing languages (at a given point in time) is sometimes known as the Universal Grammar. This theory is often supported by the arguments that creole languages are created in a natural way and their users invent their own linguistic systems. What is more, it appears that creole languages share certain features even despite the distances that not allows for contact of two different creoles.

GENERATIVE GRAMMAR

Chomsky’s concept of generative grammar implies a finite set of rules that can be applied to generate sentences, at the same time capable of producing infinite number of strings from the set rules.A type of grammar which describes a language by giving a set of rules that can be used to produce other possible sentences in that language.

A generative grammar is an algorithm for specifying, or generating, all and only the grammatical sentences in a language.In theoretical linguistics, generative grammar refers to a particular approach to the study of syntax. A generative grammar of a language attempts to give a set of rules that will correctly predict which combinations of words will form grammatical sentences.

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Generative grammar originates in the work of Noam Chomsky, beginning in the late 1950s. Early versions of Chomsky's theory were called transformational grammar, and this term is still used as a collective term that includes his subsequent theories. There are a number of competing versions of generative grammar currently practiced within linguistics . Chomsky's current theory is known as the Minimalist program

GENERATIVE?

The Generative AspectsWhat is Grammar?[Chomsky’s mentalist view]Grammar is about… competence + performance[Speaker/hearer’s knowledge of the language] [actual use of language in real situations]

[competence] [well-formed sentences vs ill-formed sentences]• My uncle realizes that I’m a busy cook.• My frying pan realizes that I’m a lousy cook.

**The “oddity” of some of these sentences is pragmatic, NOT linguistic.Transformational generative grammar Two Levels of Representation

1. Deep Structure (DS): represents syntactic relations (underlying representation)

2. Surface Structure (SS): derived (surface) representation of a Deep Structure

SS can be derived from DS by transformations like passivization, forming of questions etc.

In 1957, Noam Chomsky published Syntactic Structures, in which he developed the idea that each sentence in a language has two levels of representation — a deep structure and a surface structure.The deep structure represented the core semantic relations of a sentence, and was mapped on to the surface structure (which followed the phonological form of the sentence very closely) via transformations. Chomsky believed there are considerable similarities between languages' deep structures, and that these structures reveal properties, common to all languages that surface structures conceal

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Though transformations continue to be important in Chomsky's current theories, he has now abandoned the original notion of Deep Structure and Surface Structure. Initially, two additional levels of representation were introduced (LF — Logical Form, and PF — Phonetic Form), and then in the 1990s Chomsky sketched out a new program of research known as Minimalism.

5. General Ideas about Language

Chomsky distinguishes between:1. Competence: speaker‘s/ hearer‘s knowledge of his language2. Performance: actual use of language in concrete situations

Universal Gramamr (UG) is part of the competence of all language speakers

Innate linguistic knowledge

One of the most important of Chomsky's ideas is that most of this knowledge is innate, with the result that a baby can have a large body of prior knowledge about the structure of language in general, and need only actually learn the idiosyncratic features of the language(s) it is exposed to .

Grammaticality

The aim of a generative grammar is to generate all and only the grammatical sentences of a language.

Chomsky argued that the notions "grammatical" and "ungrammatical" could be defined in a meaningful and useful way.It is possible for a sentence to be both grammatical and meaningless, as in Chomsky's famous example "colorless green ideas sleep furiously." But such sentences manifest a linguistic problem distinct from that posed by meaningful but ungrammatical (non)-sentences such as "man the bit sandwich the," the meaning of which is fairly clear, but no native speaker would accept as well formed.

Transformational rules map the Deep Structure onto Surface Structure representations.

Phrase-structure rules were used in early transformational-generative grammars (TGG) to describe a given language's syntax. This was accomplished by attempting to break language down into its constituent parts (also known as syntactic categories) namely phrasal categories and lexical categories (aka parts of speech). Phrasal categories include the noun phrase, verb phrase, and prepositional phrase; lexical categories include noun, verb, adjective, adverb, and many others.

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Tree Diagram.

A phrase-structure grammar G can also produce a structure for a sentence that it generates. If G is context-free, this structure can have the form of a tree with its root node corresponding to the starting symbol of the grammar

Bracketed String.

The phrase or constituent structure of a sentence can also be represented in the form of a bracketed string such as the following:

[S[NP[A nice] [N dogs]] [VP[V like] [NP[N cats]]]]

Rewriting Rules.

Phrase-structure grammars are often characterised as rule-based because the classification of words and the formation of phrases is described by a collection of rules.

For example, the classification of words such as 'dogs,' 'like,' and 'nice' into the noun, verb, and adjective lexical categories, respectively, may be represented by lexical rules of the form N ® dogs, V ® like, and A ® nice.

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