Introduction to English

Syntax
2nd semester 2011
By Yusep & Fitri

Syntax in Linguistic Tree

Linguistics

Sounds of
language

Phonetics

Phonolog
y

Grammar

Morpholog
y

Syntax

Semantic
s

Meanin
g

Pragmatic
s

What is syntax?
Syntax is a branch of
linguistics that studies the
rules that govern the formation
of sentences.

Analyzing
1. a. The boy found the ball.
b. The boy found quickly.
c. The boy found in the house.
d. The boy found the ball in the house.
2. a. Sylvia slept the baby
b. Sylvia slept soundly

Grammaticality
judgments
Its determined by rules that are
shared by the speakers of language.
Words must conform to specific
patterns determined by syntactic
rules of the language.

Categories
Category refers to a group of
linguistic items which fulfill the same
or similar functions in a particular
language such as a sentence, a noun
phrase or a verb.

Word-level categories
Words can be grouped together into a
relatively small number of classes,
called syntactic categories, which
can generally substitute for one
another
without
loss
of
grammaticality.

Word-level categories are divided

into:
1.lexical words (open class words)
2.Functional words (closed class
words)

Lexical words
It is called open (lexical) because
languages can freely add new
words to the set.
e.g.
Noun, Verb, Adjective, and
Adverb

Functional words
Its called functional words because
they carry little meaning (have no
synonyms) and typically help another
word.
e.g.
Determiner, Degree words, Qualifier,
Auxiliary,
Conjunction,
Pronoun,
Preposition

Example of Syntactic
Categories
Lexical
categories:
Noun (N)
Verb (V)
Adjective (A)
Adverb (Adv)

Examples:
moisture, policy
melt, remain
good, intelligent
slowly, now

Functional
categories:
Determiner (Det)
Degree word (Deg)
Qualifier (Qual)
Auxiliary (Aux)
Conjunction (Con)

Examples:
the, this
very, more
always, perhaps
will, can
and, or

Indicate the category of each

word in the following
sentences.
a. The glass suddenly broke.
Det / N / Adv / V

b. A jogger ran towards the end of the lane.

Det / N / V / P / Det / N / P / Det / N

c. The peaches never appear quite ripe.

Det / N / Qual / V / Deg / Adj

d. Gillian will play the trumpet and the drums

in the orchestra.
N / Aux / V / Det / N / Conj / Det / N / P / Det / N

Phrase categories and

their structures
Syntactic units that are built around
a certain word category are called
phrases, the category of which is
determined by the word category
around which the phrase is built.

 E.g. if the word around which the

phrase is built is a noun, then the
phrase is a noun phrase.
e.g.
the car, a clever student

Phrasal categories
The most commonly recognized categories:
NP : Noun Phrase
The car, a clever student
VP : Verb Phrase
study hard, play the guitar
PP : Prepositional Phrase
in the class, above the earth
AP : Adjective Phrase
very tall, quite certain

Other examples
[NP the pretty girl]
[VP often dream]
[AP very pessimistic]
[PP mainly about]

Phrase Structure Rules(I)

The phrase structure rule for NP, VP,
AP and PP (example):
NP(Det) N (PP)
VP(Qual) V (NP)
AP(Deg) A (PP)
PP(Deg) P (NP)

Symbols
The list of common symbols in
syntactic analysis:
S
N
V
Art
NP
VP
Adj

Sentence
Noun
Verb
Article
Noun phrase
Verb phrase
adjective

Pro
Adv
Prep
PP
Det
PN

Pronoun
Adverb
Preposition
Prep phrase
Determiner
Proper noun

Phrase structure rules (II)

NP (Det) N (PP)
PP P NP

The bus in the yard

NP

The bus (NP)

Det

N
Det

The

PP

bus

Det
The

NP

N
bus

in

the

yard

Phrase structure rules

(III)
VP V (NP) (PP)
took the money from the
bank
(VP)

took the money

(VP)
V

NP

NP

took

det

the

money

Det

took

the

PP
N

money

from

NP
Det

the

bank

Draw the tree diagram!

1. repaired the telephone
2. the success of the program
3. a film about pollution
4. move towards the window
5. cast a spell on the broomstick

The main structure rules

1. S NP (Aux) VP
2. NP (Det) (AP) N (PP)
3. VP V (NP) (PP) (Adv)
4. PP P NP
5. AP A (PP)

e.g. The old tree swayed in the

wind
S
NP
Det

Adj

Aux
N

old

PP

NP
Det

The

VP

N
tree

past

swayed

in

the

wind

The children put the toy in the

box
S
NP
Det

VP
N
V

NP
Det

PP
N

NP
Det

The

children

put

the

toy

in

Structural ambiguity (I)

Synthetic buffalo hides (NP)

Synthetic

buffalo hides

Buffalo hides that are synthetic.

Synthetic buffalo hides (NP)

Synthetic buffalo

hides

Hides of synthetic buffalo.

Ambiguities often lead to humorous results:

For sale: an antique desk suitable
for lady with thick legs and large
drawers.
what does thick legs and
large drawers refer to?
The desk or the lady?

Structural ambiguity(II)
The boy saw the man with the
telescope
S
NP
Det

Aux
N

VP
V

NP
Det

PP
N

NP
Det

The

boy

past

saw the

man with the telescope

Structural ambiguity (III)

The boy saw the man with the
telescope
S

NP
Det

Aux
N

VP
NP

V
Det

PP
P

NP
Det

The

boy

past

saw

the

man with the telescope

Draw two phrase structure trees representing the two

meanings of the sentence:

The magician touched the child with the

wand.
Be sure you indicate which meaning goes with which
tree.

Deep structure
The basic structure of sentences
which specified by phrase structure
rules.
e.g. NP + V + NP
Same deep structure can be the
source of many other surface
structures.

For example:
The boy is sleeping
sleeping?
S
NP

Aux

Det

The

boy

VP

V
is

Sleeping

Is the boy

S
Aux

NP
Det

Is the

VP
N
boy ---

V
sleeping

Example of same deep structure:

Charlie broke the window
It was Charlie who broke the
window
Was the window broken by
Charlie?

Surface structure
The variant of basic sentence structures.
The structures that result from the
application of transformational rules.
Other sentence types that are
transformationally related are:
Passive sentences
The cat chased the mouse
The mouse
was chased by the cat

 there sentences
A man was on the roof
man on the roof

there was a

PP preposing
The astronomer saw a meteor with his
telescope
with his telescope the
astronomer saw a meteor

Example of deep &

surface Structures
The boy will leave
S
NP
Det

Aux

VP

The boy

Will the boy leave?

S
Aux

V
will

leave

The deep structure

Will

NP

VP

Det

the

boy leave

The surface structure

Draw the deep & surface structure of

the following sentences:
1.Will the boss hire Hillary?
2.Is that player leaving the team?
3.Who should the director call?
4.What is Joanne eating?

More phrase structure

rules
Coordinate structure
A coordinate structure results when
two constituents of the same
category are joined with a
conjunction, such as and or or.
e.g

NP
NP

Conj

Det

The

cat

and

NP
Det

the

dog

 Embedded sentence
It includes another sentence within
itself.
e.g.
the teacher believes the student
knows the answer
Complementizers
It introduces a complement phrase

S
NP
Det

Aux
N

VP

present

The teacher
the answer

believe

the student knows

Example of complementizer
S
NP
Det

Aux
N

present V

VP
CP

The teacher believes that

knows
the answer

the student

The Wh-movement
S
NP
Det

The

Aux
N

man

VP
NP

should repair

Det

which

car

References
Yule, J. (2010). The study of language: 4th
edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press
Fromkin, V., Rodman, R., Hyams, N.,
Collins, P. & Amberber, M. (2005). An
introduction to language: 5th edition.
Merlbourne: Nelson Thomson Learning Pty
Steinberg, D.D. (1993). An introduction to
psycholinguistics. New York: Longman