I have summarized all the important information that was discussed in the lectures and seminars. This summary includes explanations and several examples of syntax.
Analysing Sentences: An Introduction to English Syntax
Chapter 1 – Sentence Structure: Constituents
Dealing with syntactic structure:
a. Analysing linguistic expressions into their constituents
b. Identifying the categories of those constituents
c. Determining their functions
Are words the immediate constituents of the sentences that contain them?
Only if the words contained in a sentence are its immediate constituents that we can allow that
sentence actually consists of words.
While sentences certainly contain words, they don’t consist of words. They consist of phrases.
Sentences have hierarchical structure.
Constituents example: spoke is constituent of the wheel of a bicycle.
Bicycle wheel spoke, spoke, spoke
The sequence (as a whole) of words is optional.
Sequences of words that can function as constituents in the structure of sentences are called
phrases.
Syntactic tree diagrams are called phrase markers.
The phrase as a whole is optional in the structure of the sentence, the words themselves are
not optional in the structure of the phrase.
If a sequence of words can be omitted from a sentence leaving another good sentence, that’s a
good indication that the sequence is a phrase functioning as a constituent in the structure of
the sentence. However, not all phrases are omissible.
If you can replace a sequence of words in a sentence with a single word without changing the
overall structure of the sentence, then that sequence functions as a constituent of the sentence
and is therefore a phrase.
Answers to WH questions (that is, questions that contain one of the question words who,
which, what, why, where, when, whose and how) are phrases.
The movement of a sequence of words in forming a construction indicates that the sequence is
a phrase.
Phrases form not only syntactic units (constituents in the structural form of sentences) but
also semantic units. In other words, they form identifiable parts of the meaning of sentences,
they form coherent units of sense.
A phrase is a sequence of words that can function as a constituent in the structure of
sentences. It doesn’t mean that they function as constituents of every sentence in which they
appear.
Your understanding of particular word-sequences is matter of how you structure them in your
mind.
,If an element (word or phrase) is part of a phrase, it can only relate to other elements within
that some phrase.
Node = any point in a phrase marker that could branch and bear a label. It dominates
everything that appears below it and joined to it by a line. It immediately dominates another
element when there are no intervening nodes.
In a phrase marker, a sequence of elements is represented as a constituent if there is a node
that dominates all those elements and no others. So: if you can trace just the elements under
consideration (i.e. all those elements and only those elements) up to a single node, then those
elements are represented as a constituent (a phrase).
Deciding what phrases there are in the sentence is a crucial part of deciding what the sentence
actually means.
Evidence for constituents:
a. Omission
b. Replacement by a single word
c. The question test
d. Movement
e. The sense test
, Chapter 2 – Sentence Structure: Functions
Relationship between constituents will concern the functions and categories of the
immediate constituents of the sentence itself.
The ducks are paddling away has the same general structure as Ducks paddle, like this it’s
divisible into two constituents, and the two constituents are of the same general kind
(category) as the corresponding constituents of Ducks paddle. Furthermore, they have exactly
the same syntactic functions as those in Ducks paddle – put another way, the relation
between them is the same.
In making the first division, we divide sentences into two constituents, the first is traditionally
said to function as subject, and the second as predicate.
Subject = being used to mention something (f.e. the ducks)
Predicate = used to say something about the subject (f.e. paddling away)
Subject and predicate are functions.
Subject changes position in yes/no questions. It doesn’t always begin the sentence.
What kinds – categories – of phrases function as subjects and as predicate?
Subjects all contain nouns or pro-nouns, predicates all contain verbs. Any phrase that can
function as a subject is a Noun Phrase.
Why do we need to distinguish between the category and the function of a constituent? Most
categories of phrase have a variety of different functions.
Phrase markers are going to look like this:
S
NP VP
Those gigantic ducks (subject) were paddling away furiously (predicate)
A specification of the functions of the constituents is not strictly part of the phrase marker and
is not normally included.
The subject of a sentence is the NP immediately dominated by S.
The predicate of a sentence is the VP immediately dominated by S.
A B and C are sisters and daughters of A
A is the mother of B and C
B C
Sister constituents are represented at the same level of structure in phrase markers.
Constituents always have their functions in respect of their sister constituents.
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