syntax 334 lecture 3
TRANSCRIPT
Lecture 3 Constituents Word Order
Syntax 334Dr. Amira Kashgary2011
Word OrderGrammatical Vs. ungrammatical
Grammaticality vs. acceptability
Marked stylisticallyUnmarked
Possible word orders
General rules for sentence formation
Describing a sentence in English: Sentences are made up of units at one
level.These units are the wordsSO : a sentence consists of words OR
words are CONSTITUENTS of a sentence.
We can write it in a short way BY using S for the sentence , and an arrow , to mean consists of..
” Tests used to identify strings
such as
“at Harvard”as constituents (p. 24)
Sentence Types
FUNCTIONALWORD
CATEGORIES
LEXICALWORD
CATEGORIES
What is subordination?
It is one way of joining clauses together, by introducing a less important clause with the main clause to form one sentence.
The subordinate clause is embedded in the main clause
subordinatorsIf, when, whether, before, because, since, although, that
What is coordination?It is a way of joining clauses
together by using a coordinator such as “and”, “but”, and “or”.
All coordinated clauses are main clauses, i.e. they have equal importance.
It is possible to coordinate clauses as well as phrases.
Coordinators
And ButOrFor
S
DETERMINER + NOUN + VERB + DETERMINER + NOUN
the girl likes the dog
this + boy + eats + this + apple
that dog chased that girl
Tree DiagramsAnother way to representing that abstract structure “that
is shown before” is in diagrammatic form.
S
determiner noun verb determiner noun e.g : a dog chased that girl
Both type of formula serve two purposes:
1st : they describe sentences that we already know
(grammatical sentences of English).
2nd : they serve as a pattern or template to make more sentence with.
Phrase and Phrase Structure
Definition of a phrase:A phrase consists of one or more than one
word.
A phrase can be a unit or a constituent within a sentence
Whether Determiner + noun
OROne word ( NOUN )
ORPronoun ( He – she – it – they – you ….)
consists of one or more than one word this unit is called a PHRASE
For example:A dog chased that girl.
S
phrase A verb phrase B
chased Determiner noun
noun Determiner
A dog that girl
The dog chased that girl.
S determiner+noun + verb + determiner+noun.
(determiner + noun ) functions as a single unit.. (the pronoun ) can replaces the entire unit..
S
Phrase A verb phrase B
Determiner + noun Determiner + nounThe man the girl
Noun chased NounHenry carol
PRO PROHe her
This kind of phrase is called a NOUN PHRASE or NP as a short form.
S
NP verb NP
DET NOUN DET NOUN
a dog chased that girl
Form vs. Function•In terms of forms, a sentence consists of a
noun phrase and a verb phrase.
•In terms of function, a sentence consists of asubject and a predicate.
subject and a predicate. A predicate must containa predicator which is a verb.
Tree diagrams and phrase structure rulesA tree diagram is a notational device which is equivalent to labeled bracketing.
It provides the same information about the syntactic structure of the sentence
On a tree diagram The two way split into noun phrase NP
(SUBJECT..)And verb phrase VP ( PREDECATE )..Looks like this:
Predicate
Subject
What is meant by “phrase structure rules?”
A convention used to sum up the system of expanding one unit into other units.
It is a set of instructions called
PS rules