Introduction to Linguistics
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CHAPTER 8
Syntax
Instructor: Lam Hoang Phuc
8.1. Syntax – Some important concepts
Syntax: the study of the structure and ordering of
components within a sentence.
Syntactic analysis must adhere to the “all and only”
criterion: the analysis must account for all the
grammatically correct phrases and sentences and only
those in the language being analysed.
One goal of syntactic analysis is to form a small and finite
set of rules that will be capable of producing a large and
potentially infinite number of well-formed structures.
Generative grammar tạo từ generate
8.1. Syntax – Some important concepts
Deep and surface structure
Deep structure: an abstract level of structural organisation
where the elements determining structural interpretation
(subject, verb, object, etc.) are represented.
Surface structure: what actually appears as an individual
English sentences.
E.g. the two surface structures below:
o It was Charlie who broke the window.( clerk sentence)
o Was the window broken by Charlie? (interactive question
in passive)
Has the same deep structure:
o Charlie broke the window.
8.1. Syntax – Some important concepts
Structural ambiguity (KTCK)
Structural ambiguity happens when two (or more) distinct
deep structures are expressed by the same surface
structure. (ambiguous sentence)
E.g. the surface structure:
o Annie bumped into a man with an umbrella.
may express two following deep structures:
o Annie had an umbrella and she bumped into a man with
it. (1)
o Annie bumped into a man and the man happened to be
carrying an umbrella.
8.1. Syntax – Some important concepts
Recursion
Recursion refers to the capacity for applying syntactic rules
more than once in generating a structure.
Recursion can happen at:
o Phrase level: e.g. prepositional phrase structure can be
repeated many times.
E.g. The gun was on the table/ near the window /in the
bedroom.
o Sentence level: e.g. sentences can be put inside other
sentences.
E.g. John believed that Cathy knew that Mary helped
George.
8.2. Syntactic analysis
Tree diagrams
One of the most E.g.
common ways to create
visual representation of
syntactic structure is
through tree diagrams.
This type of diagrams
can explicitly show the
hierarchical organisation
of a whole sentence.
8.2. Syntactic analysis
Symbols used in syntactic analysis
8.2. Syntactic analysis
Phrase structure rules
The tree diagram of a single sentence in English can
represent a rule for generating not only that one sentence,
but a very large number of other sentences with similar
structures. Phrase: có c/n cụ thể trong câu structure
rules.
E.g.
Some common phrase structure rules:
8.2. Syntactic analysis
Lexical rules (ít qtr)
While phrase structure rules generate structures, lexical
rules specify which words can be used when rewriting
constituents.
Examples of lexical rules:
8.2. Syntactic analysis
Movement rules
Movement rules specify how one part of a structure is
moved to a different position.
E.g. in order to create an interrogative form (a question)
from a declarative form (an affirmative sentence), we need
the following movement rule:
(Aux is auxiliary verb)
8.2. Syntactic analysis
Complement phrases
In order to incorporate recursion into syntactic structure,
we need complement phrases (CP).
A complement phrase consists of a complementizer (C)
and a sentence.
One common complementizer is that.
Recursion is built into syntactic structure through the
following rules:
8.2. Syntactic analysis
Complement phrases
An example of recursion
in English syntactic
structure:
REFERENCES
Yule, G. (2010). The study of language (4th ed.).
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.