Basic Syntax for Language Learning

Author(s): John T. Waterman

Source: The German Quarterly , Nov., 1957, Vol. 30, No. 4 (Nov., 1957), pp. 262-268
Published by: Wiley on behalf of the American Association of Teachers of German

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 BASIC SYNTAX FOR LANGUAGE LEARNING

JOHN T. WATERMAN

To study syntax is to study sentence structure, and in a sense

the average student knows a good deal about the structure of his
native language even though he may have had but a minimum of
formal grammatical instruction. Teaching him a foreign language,
therefore, can be easier if he is first made aware of the intricate
processes which he uses with ease in his own speech. That he in
fact does possess such abilities can be demonstrated by means of
the first verse of Lewis Carroll's poem of the Jabberwocky:
'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

Upon first reading this bit of nonsense verse, most students

will comment that "it doesn't mean anything," or "it doesn't
make sense." This, however, is only partially true, since they are
fully aware of the function that each word plays in its own con-
struction: they can identify every word as to part of speech,
whether a noun is singular or plural, whether a verb is in the past
or present tense, and so forth. As Charles C. Fries phrases it,
referring to Alice's remarks that the poem filled her head with
ideas, only she didn't exactly know what they were: "The 'ideas'
which the verse stimulates are without doubt the structural mean-
ings for which the framework contains the signals. Most of these
nonsense words have clearly marked functions in frames that
constitute familiar structural patterns."1 Otherwise stated: the
syntactical meaning of the Jabberwocky selection is quite clear; the
lexical meaning, of course, is critically inadequate, but that is a
problem of semantics and not of syntax.
When faced with the task of analyzing the sentence structure
of a foreign language, the untrained student is at a disadvantage
inversely proportional to the syntactic similarities between his
native tongue and the one he is attempting to learn. If there is a
low degree of coincidence-as between Classical Latin and English

1 The Structure of English (New York, 1952), p. 71.

262

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 BASIC SYNTAX FOR LANGUAGE LEARNING 263

-he will flounder unless given assistance; if, converse

syntaxes have much in common- as is the case, say, w
and English-then the student can muddle through with but
little attention to structural problems. In the learning of any
foreign idiom, however, the student's ability to cope with syntactic
problems becomes greater if he is first made aware of the processes
which he unconsciously uses in structuring his native language.
The balance of this article, therefore, will be devoted to a review
of some of the more common structuring devices-most of them
to be found in all languages. It is my conviction that information
of this sort should be given to students at the outset of a course;
certainly before formal instruction in the grammar of a language
is imparted.

WORD-ORDER

Probably the most universal of syntactic devices is word-o

Modern English depends heavily upon it; so much so, indeed
American students must be made to realize that other langu
notably those that have preserved a greater number of infle
morphemes-rely far less than English upon features of ar
ment. A practical demonstration of the paramount impor
of word-order in our language can be given by scramblin
"words" of the Jabberwocky verse: the result is chaos. W
Because now the structural meaning, too-in addition to the
-has been hopelessly distorted.
The key to a proper understanding of what we mean b
expression "word-order" is found in the phrase "immedia
stituent," which may be defined as one of two or more wor
enter into a given construction (any meaningful arrangemen
words). Immediate constituents are often continuous, som
contiguous, and, for any given language, fall into pattern
quences. In English and German, for instance, descriptive
tives follow limiting adjectives and precede the nouns they m
Descriptive adjectives, in turn, may be further sub-divided
ing to permitted sequences: for example, we can say "the
black sheep" but not "the black big sheep."
Of considerable importance, however, is that immediat
stituents need not be continuous. Students of German frequ
complain because "the words that belong together are so far a

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264 THE GERMAN QUARTERLY

They may derive comfort by realizing that Eng

respect. If you ask them to link those words wh
belong together in the sentence "What are you
they can easily enough convince themselves th
are . . . doing "belong together" even thou
tinuous. This sort of insight helps prepare
syntax of subordinate clauses and separable
it helps him realize that although word-orde
two-unit phrase to the most complex senten
a definable regularity of sequence. A little pra
the immediate constituents of a few English se
his ability to untangle the sentence structure o

CONSTITUENT CLASSES

Since most of our students have had only a smattering of

mar, many of us try to get along with a minimum of f
grammatical presentation. Few of us, however, have dis
with the traditional terminology in our instruction: we sti
to nouns, verbs, prepositions, and so forth. The teaching of
becomes a simpler task if we can give these terms for the "p

speech " a tangible frame of reference. In ,all languages yet

gated some words share in a similar or identical structural e
ment, thereby permitting us to group them into "classes."
we might construct a key sentence like "The boy has a
All those words in a language which can be substituted
one of the constituents in this construction we would then reckon
to a specific constituent-class. For example, those words which
can stand in the place of boy we traditionally call "nouns." There
is no compelling reason why we should avoid the term "noun," but
we are overlooking an effective pedagogical device if we fail to
add that all such words fit into the same structural frame. Since
most of the languages taught in our schools belong to the Ind
European group, this reference to structure (and, concomitantly,
to function) is usually a more immediate and meaningful method
of dealing with the parts of speech than that of giving philosophica
definitions ("a noun is the name of a person, place, or thing")
It is also of some help to the student if he is told that parts o
speech are traditionally further divided according to whether the
follow inflectional patterns (nouns, pronouns, adjectives, an

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 BASIC SYNTAX FOR LANGUAGE LEARNING 265

verbs) or, when lacking paradigmatic features, acc

function (adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions).

STRESS AND INTONATION

Theoretical linguistics is currently concerned with probl

stress and intonation. And with good reason, for out
studies there will probably be developed a controllable
for describing (and teaching!) the syntax of a language. Te
of the highly inflected languages, especially, have never b
to deal satisfactorily with the problems of sentence struct
German, for instance, aside from some fairly specific stat
about the relative position of the various elements of a sen
there is little of an absolute or even near-absolute nature that can
be told the student. We lean heavily upon such expressions as
"normally" and "usually," yet any page of prose-not to speak
of poetry-or thirty seconds of conversation will yield a rat's nest
of exceptions. Why? Obviously because our "rules" are so circum-
scribed as to have only limited usefulness. But even though we have
not as yet devised an accurate method of systematizing those
features of selection which determine the sequence of words in a
construction, we can still direct our students' attention to what
is most likely the fundamental consideration upon which these
features are somehow based-namely, stress.
For instance, which of the following sequences are permissible
in English ?
1. He hit him.
2. Him hit he.
3. Him he hit.

The first example is the familiar subject-predicate type of sente

which, because of its frequency of occurrence, is considered "no
mal"; it has a characteristic stress and intonation pattern. Numb
two is non-English and is therefore unacceptable to the nativ
speaker. Number three is acceptable providing him and hit a
properly stressed and the entire phrase is given a characteris
intonation-contour ("Him he hit! But for some reason he didn't
hit anyone else!" Or, with extra-heavy stress and a sharp intona-
tion-rise on hit: "Him he hit!l But the others he only slapped!").
German presents a somewhat different situation:

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266 THE GERMAN QUARTERLY

1. Er hat ihn geschlagen.

2. Ihn hat er geschlagen.
3. Ihn er hat geschlagen.

The most obvious disparity is that number

idiomatically acceptable, whereas three is not.
hat er geschlagen" is not as unusual or emphat
The most emphatic combination in German
"Den hat er (aber) geschlagen!" with a final risi
characteristic of words with a terminal unstre
A full-scale investigation of the stress and in
of any language would lead the teacher too far
brief discussion of these phenomena will help t
the important r1le played by emphasis in deter
All of us, of course, make mention of emphasis in
and explain certain syntactic deviations, but pe
of us realize that stress and intonation pro
primordial force upon sentence patterning
contained system of permissible word seque
could somehow probe into the innermost he
might well discover that emphasis and word
relation to one another of cause and effect. By
we like to point out to our students that Germa
precision afforded it by its case-makers, has a
word-order than English. But this freedom
sometimes imagined. Take the sentence "Den V
If this phrase is given the stress and intonat
conventional subject-predicate sentence, nine o
will change it to "Der Vater sah den Jungen
stressed speech does all ambiguity disappear.
the phrase is forced to mean "The boy saw h
reader would certainly expect the context to jus
Sometimes-quite often in as inflexibly patt
Modern English-syntax as we customarily defin
breaks down as an adequate signalling device
is the meaning of the following two sentences ?
1. "Will you be good enough to pass on all folklor
2. "Are you willing to discuss any old business?"

When these sentences were originally dicta

was clear, but in a later typewritten copy th

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 BASIC SYNTAX FOR LANGUAGE LEARNING 267

obvious. They were meant to mean (and did so mean

stressed) :
1. "Will you be good enough to pass (judgment) on all folklore ma-
terial. "
2. " Are you willing to discuss any old (previous, not new) business?"

Although the use of italics, quotation marks, and the like can
reflect stress and intonation,2 they do so only imperfectly and
within prescribed limits. The only way to avoid ambiguity in
sentences of the sort given above is to choose different words.
AGREEMENT

Since Modern English-quite unlike many another ton

preserved so few instances of grammatical agreement, spe
English who are learning another language should not only
of the vestiges that still live on in their own speech, but th
also be alerted to the extensive use made of this feature of selection
in determining the syntax of other languages. Two general types-
government and concord (or congruence) -deserve special mention.
Government involves the selection of certain inflectional forms.
This selection-the results of which yield a specific structural
pattern-is determined by the influence of some words upon the
ease or mood of others: we say that the accompanying form
"governs" the selected form. Thus, if we list the three words talk,
work, with, and then seek to determine what control they exert
upon the inflected forms of the first-person personal pronoun, we
shall of course arrive at the patterns I talk, I work, with me. When
noun-like words are involved, these special inflectional categories
are called ''cases."

Almost the only remnants of case still left to English are found
in the pronouns (the personal pronoun and the relative who), so
that grammatical government has long since given way to word-
order as the principal means of signalling the syntactic function
of nominals. Even in the few instances where case distinctions have
been preserved they are accorded only limited recognition as
structural markers. If you ask a class of American students to
correct the sentence "Him and me chased the boy," they will

2 I purposely avoid discussing juncture in this article, although it is a criti-

cal feature in the total linguistic meaning of these two sentences.

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268 THE GERMAN QUARTERLY

change it to read "He and I chased the boy." P

suggest that perhaps the word-order is faulty
priority to the case-markers, and that the sen
"The boy chased him and me." 'These same s
Latin, Greek, German, or Russian, would do w
member that government in certain languages
and often sovereign method of determining sy
-even if English does manage to get along with
The second type of grammatical agreement-concord-is so
prominent in the syntaxes of so many languages, that the bulk of
elementary instruction is often centered on this particular phenome-
non. And the monolingual speaker of English is, as usual, poorly
equipped to cope with the difficulties he encounters as soon as he
ventures beyond Anglo-Saxon.
Simply put, the term "concord" means that certain words are
required to take certain forms which correspond in certain ways
with certain other words. The demonstrative pronouns this and
that evince about all that is left of concord in English: they change
to these and those when construed with a plural noun. Other rem-
nants include the congruence of noun and verb in the third person
singular of the present indicative of most verbs, and the selection
of gender when the singular of the personal pronouns is used-
although the restriction in English to natural gender makes the
choice an easy one.
Students of beginning German no doubt struggle more with
grammatical agreement than with any other phase of syntax, for
under this rubric fall the conjugational and declensional patterns,
the gender of all nominals, and the rules which determine the
selection of cases. Our grammars do a lot to lighten the learner's
task by systematizing and summarizing the information he must
absorb, but his knowledge and understanding of how these discrete
units of language can articulate into meaningful arrangements of
sounds and forms will to a great extent depend upon his over-all
awareness of syntactic processes-most especially as they apply or
do not apply to his native language.
University of Southern California

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