Syntax

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  Understanding Language

  A Basic Course in Linguistics

  • Elizabeth Grace Winkler, Elizabeth Winkler(Authors)
  • 2012(Publication Date)
  • Continuum

    (Publisher)

  6 Grammar Grammar 137 Linguists call this prescriptive grammar , because just as a doctor prescribes medicine to cure your ills, the teacher, or grammar book, prescribes rules that tell you what you should do to ‘fix’ your natural way of speaking and writing to fit the formal rules of the language (such as not to end a sentence with a preposition). Linguists, however, are more interested in understanding how the natural grammars of languages are structured, including how the sound system of a language works and how people combine morphemes and words into phrases that are meaningful for them. Syntax is the branch of linguistics that is concerned with the principles by which the phrases and words of a language are combined to make sentences. By studying the sentences of a language, syntacticians are able to create a finite set of rules for illustrating the patterns of a language. Although most people claim that they do not know very much about grammar, the reverse is actually true. The very fact that people successfully communicate with others quite naturally is proof that they do know a great deal about the structures of the languages that they speak. That is not to say that they can name all the parts of speech using proper terms, nor list all the rules of grammar, but all humans know the Syntax of their language just the same. We know this because every day native speakers create without dif-ficulty long and complex sentences that they have never heard or produced before, and they understand the same types of sentences spoken by others. Native speakers of any language are capable of making grammatical judge-ments about their language even if they have never had a grammar class. If someone asks an English speaker if the following sentence is grammatical: ‘car the parked is the in front of school’, no native speaker would say ‘yes’.

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  An Introduction to Syntax

  Fundamentals of Syntactic Analysis

  • Edith A. Moravcsik(Author)
  • 2006(Publication Date)
  • Continuum

    (Publisher)

  And given that sentences include more than one word with selec-tion and order constrained, an additional rule component, called Syntax, is called for. ON Syntax Minimally, Syntax describes the selection and order of words that make well-formed sentences and it does so in as general a manner as possible so as to bring out similarities among different sentences of the same language and of different languages and render them explainable. Since sentences are not just complex objects but symbolic objects that convey meanings, syn-tactic rules also need to account for the relationship between strings of word meanings and the entire sentence meaning, on the one hand, and the rela-tionship between strings of word forms and the entire sentential phonetic form, on the other. Structural Syntax -describing word selection and ordering -will be detailed in Chapters 2-4; correspondence Syntax -describing the rela-tionship between Syntax, meaning and phonetic form -will be taken up in Chapter 5. Notes Section i Preliminaries The term 'Syntax' is used in two ways in the literature: in reference to a par-ticular aspect of grammatical structure and in reference to the subfield of descriptive linguistics that describes this aspect of grammar. Section 2.1 Explanation The concept of explanation known as the deductive-nomological, or covering law, model associated primarily with Carl Hempel's name (see Hempel and Oppenheim 1948) has been adopted in this book because of its intuitive appeal and for lack of a clear alternative. Nonetheless, it should be noted that this is only one of the several concepts of explanation that have been 26 An Introduction to Syntax entertained by philosophers of science and it has been shown to be unsatis-factory in some ways. A brief and clear summary of the issues surrounding the goals and means of scientific explanations is Newton-Smith (2000). More will be said about linguistic explanations in Chapter 7.

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  Language Files

  Materials for an Introduction to Language and Linguistics, 13th Edition

  • Department of Linguistics(Author)
  • 2022(Publication Date)
  • Ohio State University Press

    (Publisher)

  C H A P T E R 5 Syntax © 2015 by Julia Porter Papke 208 F I L E 5.0 What Is Syntax? As a component of mental grammar, Syntax has to do with how sentences and other phrases can be constructed out of smaller phrases and words. As a native speaker of some language, you know which strings of words correspond to sentences in your language, and which don’t, because you know what the permissible syntactic combinations of words are in your language. Syntax is also a name for the subfield of linguistics that studies this component of grammar. The construction of sentences is not a trivial matter. If you take a moment to consider it, you will realize that it isn’t possible to take just any bunch of English words, jumble them together in random order, and get an actual sentence of English. Only certain combina- tions of words actually count as sentences of English—and the same is true of all natural languages. But how do you know which combinations of words are sentences and which are not? What kinds of factors determine which combinations are possible? How are languages similar and how do they differ with respect to sentence construction? These are the kinds of questions that syntacticians try to answer and that you’ll become familiar with in this file. Contents 5.1 Basic Ideas of Syntax Introduces the concept of linguistic expressions and grammaticality, as well as the idea that there are syntactic properties independent of meaning. 5.2 Syntactic Properties Introduces two kinds of syntactic properties: word order restrictions and the co-occurrence requirements of expressions, including a discussion of arguments and adjuncts. 5.3 Syntactic Constituency Introduces the notion of syntactic constituents and presents several general constituency tests. 5.4 Syntactic Categories Explains the concept of syntactic category and syntactic distribution and introduces several major syntactic categories in English.

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  Language in Education

  Social Implications

  • Rita Elaine Silver, Soe Marlar Lwin(Authors)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • Bloomsbury Academic

    (Publisher)

  A closely related field of study is Syntax, which studies the way words combine to form sentences. Together, the sub-disciplines of morphology and Syntax are referred to as grammar. Finally, in any study of the structure of language, we examine how words convey meaning either by themselves or when combined to form phrases and sentences – this is the branch of linguistics known as semantics. In this chapter, we will focus on the basic concepts which will be helpful for future teachers. As the chapter spans four very important branches of linguistics (phonetics, morphology, Syntax and semantics), we will only be able to discuss basic concepts and ideas. Many of the explanations have been simplified for this introductory overview. It is also impossible to cover many of the structural differences across languages in this one chapter. Therefore, our focus is on the structure of English, the common language of our readers, and our examples are drawn from that language. PHONETICS We begin with phonetics , the study of speech sounds. There are three different approaches to phonetics. We can study: how speech sounds are produced (articulatory phonetics), ● ● their physical characteristics (acoustic phonetics) and ● ● how speech sounds are perceived (auditory phonetics). ● ● In this chapter, we will be focusing only on articulatory phonetics as this is the most useful area of phonetics for teachers. An important aspect of studying phonetics is to have a set of technical terms to discuss the sounds of speech, as well as a way to represent the sounds of English. To be able to study, discuss and write about speech sounds in language, linguists use a phonetic alphabet. A phonetic alphabet is different from an orthographic or writing alphabet. Whereas the latter is about spelling a written word, the former is about how to accurately and consistently represent speech sounds.

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  Understanding Language

  A Study of Theories of Language in Linguistics and in Philosophy

  • (Author)
  • 2019(Publication Date)
  • De Gruyter Mouton

    (Publisher)

  At times linguists talk in ways that would lead to misunderstandings concerning Syntax and seman-tics. For example, linguists and others in the cognitive sciences talk about semantic representation or semantic structures as if it made sense to talk of semantic analysis apart from some syn-tactic parsing. Possibly some have been misled by the slogan according to which grammar relates sound to meaning. This slogan suggests the picture of an independent realm of semantic structures and then a set of syntactic rules that relate these to the phonological component. Such a picture is totally misleading. Perhaps some have thought of the specification of primitives and the definitions which then relate these to all defined terms as some sort of independent structure. But the task of sorting out the primitives and providing definitions for the other terms CANNOT take place until one has determined what syntactic cat-egories the language has available. Definitions as well as the assignment of meanings to the primitives must take into account the syntactic category in which the items in question fall. It is incoherent to think of the rules of language as starting with lexi-cal decomposition and then somehow, via transformations, ar-riving at the sentences of the language. That kind of analysis would miss the syntactic categories, and thus could not contain formation rules. It could not explain what makes certain units into sentences, i.e. that which is true or false. This is the force of Quine's dictum that logic chases truth up the tree of gram-mar. Rules that explain how the complex is made up of parts are needed both for the Syntax and the semantics.

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  Concise Encyclopedia of Philosophy of Language and Linguistics

  • Alex Barber, Robert J Stainton(Authors)
  • 2010(Publication Date)
  • Elsevier Science

    (Publisher)

  (syntactic) structure. The responsibility of linguistics is to describe the full range of such facts, not just for English, but for all human languages. Then, in virtue of its scientific pretensions, it has to (attempt to) explain why these facts rather than any others are the ones that occur – again both in English and in other languages. To do justice to the richness of what we know, it is necessary to distinguish not just the lexicon and the computational system, but to differ-entiate among Syntax, semantics, morphology, pho-nology and phonetics, and to relate this knowledge to pragmatics – how we interpret utterances in context. Take our knowledge of morphology, the internal structure of words. We know that thick, thicker, thickest, and thicken are all words of English, but that there is no thinnen to accompany thin, thinner, thinnest . We know that thick relates to thicken and that rich relates to enrich , whereas richen is slightly odd, and enthick is impossible. This knowledge can’t just be a result of our never having heard thinnen or enthick before, you may never have heard texted before, as in ‘‘I’ve just texted an urgent message to Fred’’, but you know that that is possible. As linguists, we may also know that some languages, such as Vietnamese, have almost no morphology: words in this language have none of the internal structure characteristic of affix-rich items such as indecisive-ness or rearranged . On the other hand, some (poly-synthetic) languages, such as Inuktitut (Eskimo) or Mohawk pile one affix on top of another so that words are often strikingly complex, and correspond to whole sentences in English. Baker (2001: 87) gives the Mohawk example in (15) with the meaning ‘‘He made the thing that one puts on one’s body ugly for her’’: (15) Washakotya’tawitsherahetkvhta’se’ Our knowledge of phonology, the sound structure of language, is equally rich.

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  Dialects of the Motion Forms in Language

  • János Zsilka(Author)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • De Gruyter Mouton

    (Publisher)

  The essence of this theory is that we first grasp syntactic facts and only then do we examine morphological features according to higher principles. 4* 52 THE IDEA OF THE SYSTEM OF LANGUAGE 3.4. FUNCTIONAL Syntax The method of introspection investigates not only the explicit aspects of words but a deeper sense of their existence as well: it clarifies the roles of words in the system of Syntax. The role played by a word in the system of Syntax is its function. (Node labels indicate functions.) Structure exists only insofar as function does. For this reason, structural Syntax is equal to functional Syntax. Syntax is independent not only of morphology but of seman-tics as well. The structural level solves the linguistic expres-sion of thought. The semantic level is the realm of thought excluding linguistic expression. The mental activity carried out at the structural level is subjective and unconscious, deep and necessary. Will does not influence this activity, which can be analysed only intuitively. The mental activity carried out at the semantic level is objective and conscious, surface and contingent. The structural and semantic levels are thus inde-pendent of each other. The proof of this is that even a seman-tically absurd (anomalous) sentence may be correct structur-ally. Syntax deals with the form of the expression of thoughts and not with their content. The structural and semantic levels are independent of each other but there is a certain parallelism between them. This manifests itself in relationships between words: semantic rela-tions tower over structural ones. The hierarchy of words at the semantic level is the reverse of what it is at the structural level, e.g.: 3.5. SEMANTIC LEVEL forras spring forras spring J kicsiny little little THE IDEA OF THE SYSTEM OF LANGUAGE 53 The lower a word is in the structural hierarchy, the more important it is from the point of view of the meaning of the sentence.

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  The English Language and Linguistics Companion

  • Keith Allan, Julie Bradshaw, Geoffrey Finch(Authors)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Red Globe Press

    (Publisher)

  New York: Praeger. Halliday, Michael A.K. and Christian M.I.M. Matthiessen 2004. An Introduction to Functional Grammar . 3rd edn. London: Arnold. Van Valin, Robert D. Jr 2001. An Introduction to Syntax . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Van Valin, Robert D. Jr and Randy LaPolla 1997. Syntax: Structure, Meaning, and Function . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. fundamentals of semantics and pragmatics 67 chapter contents i Defining semantics and pragmatics 67 i Meaning is compositional 67 i Context and common ground 69 i Key points 74 i References 74 Defining semantics and pragmatics Within the discipline of linguistics the term semantics is not in the least bit pejorative as it is in the colloquial accusation That’s just semantics! which means “You’re just quibbling and prevaricating.” Semantics is the study of meaning in human languages. To be more precise, it is the study and representation of the meaning of every kind of constituent and expression in language, and also of the meaning relationships between them. What about pragmatics? Pragmatics is the context-dependent assignment of meaning to language expressions used in acts of speaking and writing. Think of pragmatics as the investigation of meaning in language on particular occasions when language is used, whereas semantics studies meaning inherent in the language itself, as already existing in the language for people to make use of. So, where does the semantics come from? Doesn’t it – at least partly – derive from the way people use language? And the answer is yes, semantics is to a large extent dependent on pragmatics; but just as the chicken comes from an egg, and the egg comes from the chicken, there is a conundrum: semantics and pragmatics are interdependent, and we shall see some of their mutual influence. Meaning is compositional At the simplest level of analysis, any language is a system of forms paired with meanings.

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  The SAGE Handbook of Writing Development

  • Roger Beard, Debra Myhill, Jeni Riley, Martin Nystrand, Roger Beard, Debra Myhill, Jeni Riley, Martin Nystrand(Authors)
  • 2009(Publication Date)
  • SAGE Publications Ltd

    (Publisher)

  I will take this position up later on in ‘the case for minimal-ism’. As an alternative to traditional grammar or more formal grammars, it makes some sense. Fortunately, these are not the only alternatives. Structural grammar Structuralist approaches to grammar, from the start, have taken pains to put the descrip-tion of language on more scientific grounds. In some ways, as in the seminal work of Leonard Bloomfield (1933), that has meant limiting attention to formal elements, those elements that can be most readily observed and measured. It is certainly a descriptive rather than prescriptive approach, more inter-ested in language in present use than that in history. Since speech has predated writing by thousands of years and since many languages that need to be described have never been written down, speech is given primacy in the system. This, of course, puts it at odds with prescriptive approaches, in part, because it will recognize usage patterns discouraged by traditional grammar to be rule-driven, grammatical, even widely used. A structural grammar amends classifica-tions of words by trying to give them a more scientific ground. As much as possible, that means definition by formal characteristics HOW LINGUISTICS CAN INFORM THE TEACHING OF WRITING 197 rather than semantic ones. A noun is a noun if it can be made plural by adding ‘s’, or if it can follow a determiner (itself a term not recognized in traditional grammar). A verb is a verb if it can change form to reflect tense and aspect. Structural linguistics recognizes phonetic, morphemic, and syntactic systems. They describe the way sounds come together to make syllables and words, the way mean-ingful units combine in the making of words, and the various patterns that occur when words come together in sentences. It makes a far clearer distinction between word class - which tells us something about the potential of a word - and its role within a particular instance of use.

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  Language

  Its Structure and Use

  • Edward Finegan, , , (Authors)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • Cengage Learning EMEA

    (Publisher)

  The study of Syntax addresses the structure of sentences and their relationships to one another both structurally and functionally. All languages have ways of referring to entities—people, places, things, ideas, events, and so on. The expressions used to refer to entities are noun phrases. Proper nouns like Pam and Pennsylvania , common nouns like cows and calories , and personal pronouns like he , she , and them are noun phrases. So are more complex expressions such as Pam’s mother , the star of the show , a jaunty jug-gler from Jersey , and that feisty federal judge in Massachusetts who was nominated by Obama in 2011 . All are referring expressions; all are noun phrases. What are called referring expressions when speaking about function are called noun phrases when speaking in syntactic terms. From a functional perspective, expressions such as married a butcher and bought an iPad are predicates or predications, but from a syntactic point of view, they’re verb phrases. Languages differ from one another in many ways, but languages generally rely on noun phrases as referring expressions and verb phrases as predicates. A simple sentence—sometimes called a clause —contains a verb and, at a minimum, any other expressions required by the verb as part of its structural characteristics. In chapter 2 we discussed subcategories of verbs and the fact that speakers of a language know—subconsciously at least—the kinds of clause struc-ture permitted by each familiar verb. We noted that some verbs require a noun phrase complement, as in Britney bought a new raincoat . But others do not permit a noun phrase complement, so English speakers can say, Danny tripped but not *Danny tripped a shoe ; they can say, He fell into the pool but not *He fell the pool . From a syntactic point of view, the verb is the pivotal element in a clause, and its subcategorization determines what kinds of complements it may have.

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