TON DUC THANG UNIVERSITY
FACULTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES CONTENTS
DIVISION OF LINGUISTICS, LITERATURE & CULTURAL STUDIES
1. What the syntax rules do
INTRODUCTION TO LANGUAGE - 001164 2. Sentence structure
3. Constituents and Constituency Tests
CHAPTER 3: 4. Syntactic Categories
Syntax: The sentence
patterns of language
Lecturer: Le Thi Phuong
31/7/2020 001164 - Chapter 3 The sentence patterns of language 1 31/7/2020 001164 - Chapter 3 The sentence patterns of language 2
WHAT IS SYNTAX? WHAT IS SYNTAX? (CONT.)
• Syntax: study of ways in which words combine
E.g: (The / boy) (found/ a dog.) into units such as phrases, clauses, and
sentences.
=> Sentences: composed of discrete units that are
combined by rules • The results from this combinations → syntactic
structures.
31/7/2020 001164 - Chapter 3 The sentence patterns of language 3 31/7/2020 001164 - Chapter 3 The sentence patterns of language 4
WHAT IS SYNTAX? (CONT.) WHAT THE SYNTAX RULES DO
• Syntax: study of ways in which words combine into
The rules of syntax combine words into phrases and
units such as phrases, clauses, and sentences.
phrases into sentences.
• The results from this combinations → syntactic
• Determine the correct word order for a language.
structures.
E.g. 1) I live in HCMC.
2) HCMC I in live.
31/7/2020 001164 - Chapter 3 The sentence patterns of language 5 31/7/2020 001164 - Chapter 3 The sentence patterns of language 6
WHAT THE SYNTAX RULES DO (CONT.) WHAT THE SYNTAX RULES DO (CONT.)
• Describe the relationship between the meaning • Specify the grammatical relations of a sentence,
of a particular group of words and the such as subject and direct object.
arrangement of those words. E.g. 5) Your dog chased my cat.
E.g. 3) He did what I told. 6) My cat chased your dog.
4) He told what I did.
31/7/2020 001164 - Chapter 3 The sentence patterns of language 7 31/7/2020 001164 - Chapter 3 The sentence patterns of language 8
WHAT THE SYNTAX RULES DO (CONT.) WHAT THE SYNTAX RULES DO (CONT.)
• Specify other constraints that sentences must • Syntactic rules not only determine the order of
adhere to. words in a sentence, but also how the words are
E.g. 7) (a) the boy found. grouped.
(b) the boy found the ball. E.g. The child found the puppy
[The child] [found the puppy]
[(the)(child)] [found{(the)(puppy)}]
31/7/2020 001164 - Chapter 3 The sentence patterns of language 9 31/7/2020 001164 - Chapter 3 The sentence patterns of language 10
WHAT THE SYNTAX RULES DO (CONT.) SENTENCE STRUCTURE (CONT.)
• Syntactic knowledge includes rules that tell us how • Sentences have hierarchical organization: words are
words form groups in a sentence or how they are grouped into natural units.
hierarchically arranged with respect to one another.
Tree
diagram
31/7/2020 001164 - Chapter 3 The sentence patterns of language 11 31/7/2020 001164 - Chapter 3 The sentence patterns of language 12
CONSTITUENTS AND CONSTITUENCY TESTS CONSTITUENTS AND CONSTITUENCY TESTS (CONT.)
• The natural groupings of a sentence are called 1. “Stand alone” test: if a group of words can
constituents. stand alone, they form a constituent.
E.g. The boy found the puppy.
• We use the constituency tests to find the What did the boy find?
constituents. → found the
→ The puppy
31/7/2020 001164 - Chapter 3 The sentence patterns of language 13 31/7/2020 001164 - Chapter 3 The sentence patterns of language 14
CONSTITUENTS AND CONSTITUENCY TESTS (CONT.) CONSTITUENTS AND CONSTITUENCY TESTS (CONT.)
3. “Move as a unit” test: if a group of words can
2. “Replacement by a pronoun” test: pronouns be moved, they form a constituent.
can substitute for natural groups
E.g. It was a puppy that the child found.
E.g. + Where did you find the puppy?
A puppy was found by the child.
I found him in the park.
+ John found a puppy and Bill did too.
31/7/2020 001164 - Chapter 3 The sentence patterns of language 15 31/7/2020 001164 - Chapter 3 The sentence patterns of language 16
CONSTITUENTS AND CONSTITUENCY TESTS (CONT.) CONSTITUENTS AND CONSTITUENCY TESTS (CONT.)
Excercise 1: Can the underlined parts of the sentences Excercise 1: Can the underlined parts of the sentences
be constituents? be constituents?
People love dogs and I do, too. I saw a man in uniform.
People love dogs.
Bob stole my money.
The woman in the office screamed.
31/7/2020 001164 - Chapter 3 The sentence patterns of language 17 31/7/2020 001164 - Chapter 3 The sentence patterns of language 18
CONSTITUENTS AND CONSTITUENCY TESTS (CONT.) CONSTITUENTS AND CONSTITUENCY TESTS (CONT.)
Exercise 2: Draw tree diagram for these sentences to
Constituent structure of a sentence may be graphically show the constituents and sentence structures.
represented by a tree diagram.
Mary shot me.
Jenny slept in the tent.
We stayed in the cave for 2 days.
31/7/2020 001164 - Chapter 3 The sentence patterns of language 19 31/7/2020 001164 - Chapter 3 The sentence patterns of language 20
CONSTITUENTS AND CONSTITUENCY TESTS (CONT.) SYNTACTIC CATEGORIES
A police officer (n) found the puppy in the garden.
Your neighbor (n)
This yellow cat (n)
Very beautiful (adj)
Upset (v)
Skillfully (adv)
The/a (det)
31/7/2020 001164 - Chapter 3 The sentence patterns of language 21 31/7/2020 001164 - Chapter 3 The sentence patterns of language 22
SYNTACTIC CATEGORIES (CONT.) SYNTACTIC CATEGORIES (CONT.)
A family of expressions that can substitute for one Noun phrase:
another without loss of grammaticality is called a
syntactic category. • often contain a determiner (a/ the) and a noun
• also consist of a proper name, a pronoun, a noun
E.g. without a determiner, or even a clause or a
sentence
E.g: John, He, Him, The girl that Professor Snap
loved, the man of her dreams.
=> A police office, Your neighbor, This yellow cat:
the same syntactic category: Noun phrase
31/7/2020 001164 - Chapter 3 The sentence patterns of language 23 31/7/2020 001164 - Chapter 3 The sentence patterns of language 24
SYNTACTIC CATEGORIES (CONT.) SYNTACTIC CATEGORIES (CONT.)
Noun phrase: Verb phrase:
E.g: John found a puppy.
• Always contain a verb
• May contain other categories: noun phrase,
prepositional phrase
31/7/2020 001164 - Chapter 3 The sentence patterns of language 25 31/7/2020 001164 - Chapter 3 The sentence patterns of language 26
SYNTACTIC CATEGORIES (CONT.) SYNTACTIC CATEGORIES (CONT.)
Syntactic categories include:
• Phrasal categories (NP, VP, AdjP, PP, AdvP)
• Lexical categories (N, V, P, Adj, Adv)
• Functional categories (determiner – e.g. a, the,
this, those, every; auxiliary – e.g. have, could, must)
31/7/2020 001164 - Chapter 3 The sentence patterns of language 27 31/7/2020 001164 - Chapter 3 The sentence patterns of language 28
SYNTACTIC CATEGORIES (CONT.)
HOMEWORK
• Complete all the tasks in Further practice (Handout
Exercise: Write the syntactic category for each Chapter 3)
underlined phrase. • Have the assigned reading materials read:
A bottle is not enough. Fromkin, V., Rodman, R., & Hyams, N., [2014], An
Five green bottle are enough. Introduction to Language, Tenth Edition, Cengage
Jack went away. Learning, New York.
The car is very expensive. Pages: 140-158; 165-177
31/7/2020 001164 - Chapter 3 The sentence patterns of language 29 31/7/2020 001164 - Chapter 3 The sentence patterns of language 30