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Syntactic Process

Syntax refers to the rules and principles that govern the structure of sentences in a language. It involves analyzing parts of speech, grammatical relationships, and word order to determine a sentence's meaning. Syntactic processing is how the grammatical structure of a sentence is analyzed to understand its meaning. There are four main types of syntactic processes: recursion, movement, conjoining, and embedding, which allow for generating complex sentences and expressing various meanings through arranging words and phrases.

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Mohammad Hossain
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930 views

Syntactic Process

Syntax refers to the rules and principles that govern the structure of sentences in a language. It involves analyzing parts of speech, grammatical relationships, and word order to determine a sentence's meaning. Syntactic processing is how the grammatical structure of a sentence is analyzed to understand its meaning. There are four main types of syntactic processes: recursion, movement, conjoining, and embedding, which allow for generating complex sentences and expressing various meanings through arranging words and phrases.

Uploaded by

Mohammad Hossain
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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What is syntax?

‘Syntax’ is the term used to refer to the arrangement of words,


phrases, and clauses in a sentence to make them meaningful.
The Oxford Learner’s Dictionary defines syntax as “the way words and
phrases are put together to form sentences in a language.”

Syntax is a branch of linguistics that deals with how words and


morphemes are arranged to form phrases and sentences. It
encompasses various aspects such as word order, grammatical
relationships, the structure of sentences, agreement, cross-linguistic
differences, and the connection between form and meaning.

What is syntactic processing?


Syntactic processing refers to the process of analysing the
grammatical structure of a sentence to understand its meaning. It
involves identifying the various parts of speech in a sentence, such as
nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs, and determining how they
relate to one another to give the sentence its intended meaning.
For example, consider the sentence “The cat sat on the mat.”
Syntactic processing would involve identifying important components
in the sentence, such as “cat” as a noun, “sat” as a verb, “on” as a
preposition, and “mat” as a noun. It would also involve understanding
that “cat” is the sentence's subject and “mat” is the object.

There are four types of syntactic processes:


1. Recursion
2. Movement
3. Conjoining
4. Embedding

1. Recursion
Recursion is the re-occurrence of the same elements with derived
meaning. Recursion is a generative and infinite process that plays a
vital role in generating phrases and sentences of arbitrary length. We
can examine the following two examples of how we can produce new
phrases from existing phrases through a recursive process:
a. Adding adjectives:
● The old man.
● The little old man.
● The poor little old man.
● The clever, poor little old man.

b. Using relative pronouns:


● This is the cat that killed the rat that was sold by the old man
who lived in the city that was on the river.

2. Movement
Movement refers to the syntactic process by which a constituent
(such as a word or phrase) is displaced from its original position to
another position in a sentence, often for emphasis, grammaticality, or
information structure.
There are some processes for the movement of sentence
constituents:

Discontinuous Constituents:
In this process, a constituent is moved to a different position in a
sentence, creating a gap between its original position and its new
position.
e.g, the verb phrase “pull down”
● He pulled down the thief. (Original position)
● He pulled the thief down. (new position)

Deletion:
In this process, a syntactic element is moved but then "deleted"
(omitted) from the surface structure of the sentence.
e.g., You close the window. → Close the window.

Re-arrangement:
Refers to the change in the linear order of linguistic elements within a
sentence due to movement operations.
e.g., The door is white. → Is the door white?
He saw the dog in the park. → In the park, he saw the dog.
Passive movement:
refers to a specific type of movement operation where the syntactic
subject of an active sentence is displaced to a different position in the
sentence, typically to a position following the verb. This movement
results in the transformation of the active sentence into a passive
construction.
E.g., He was driving the car. → The car was being driven by him.

3. Conjoining
Conjoining, also known as coordination, involves combining two or
more words, phrases, or clauses of equal status to create a larger unit.
Conjunctions such as "and," "but," and "or" are often used to link the
coordinated elements.
Example:
The president will understand
The president will agree.
Coinjoining: The president will understand and agree.

4. Embedding
Embedding involves the inclusion of one syntactic unit within another,
creating hierarchical structures. Embedded clauses or phrases
function as constituents within larger clauses or phrases.

Example:
The boy spoke to you
The boy is my brother
Embedding: The boy who spoke to you is my brother.

These syntactic processes are fundamental to the organization and


generation of sentences in natural languages. They allow for the
creation of complex structures and the expression of a wide range of
meanings and relationships between linguistic elements.

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