Name : Nur Hairunnisa' Annuri

Student Number : 220107014

Class : TBI 3A

INTRO TO ENGLISH LINGUISTICS: SYNTAX

What is Syntax

Syntax in linguistics refers to the arrangement of words and phrases that covers topics
like word order and grammar rules, such as subject-verb agreement or correct placement of
direct and indirect object. Syntax is essential to understanding constituency, the term for multiple
words acting as a single unit. In long and complex sentences, constituency is necessary to
determine the hierarchy within the sentence, particularly with sentence diagramming.

Sentence Types

In many traditional grammars three major sentence types are distinguished; simple,
coordinate, and complex sentence. a simple sentence consists of a single clause that stands alone
as its own sentence. in a coordinate sentence (compound sentence), two or more clauses are
joined by a conjunction in a coordinate relationship. a complex sentence combines two or more
clauses in such way that one clause functions as a grammatical part of the other one.

Simple sentences = one clause

Ann cooked the meals

Lucky will join a competition this month
They should have believed in you

Each of these sentences contains only one verb, but a verb itself can consist of a single word or
more than one word (as in the underlined words).

Coordinate sentences = two clauses

Nisa washed the dishes, and Lia cleaned the table

Ann bought a new book, but she didn't read it often

A coordinate sentence consists of two clauses joined by conjunctions. the clauses in a coordinate
sentence hold equal status; neither clause is part of the other clause and each could stand by itsef
as an independent sentence.

Complex sentences

Lia said Ann cooked the meals.

Lia wanted Ann to cook the meals.
He is wondering whether Ann will buy a new book.
The news that Lucky will join a competition this month suprised her.

Besides being conjoined to another clause, one clause can be incorporated into another clause.
the underlined portion is a clause that is incorporated or embedded into another clause. the
embedded clause is introduced by a word that would not occur there if the clause were standing
as an independent sentence. when a clause is embedded into another clause, it is often introduced
by a subordinator (not all).

Ann said (she saw a ghost).

Ann said it. (it is the direct object of the verb said)
Lia cooked the meals (after Lucky cleaned the room).
Lia cooked the meals then. (then is an adverbial)

Complex sentences contain clauses of unequal status. One clause is subordinate to another clause
and functions as a grammatical part of that clause. every subordinate clause is by definition
embedded in a matrix clause, in which it serves in a grammatical function such as subject, direct
object, or adverbial.

Constituency and Tree Diagrams

Tree Diagrams

Tree diagram can represent and illustrate the relationship among the clauses of a
sentence. in representing a complex sentence, we can subtitute the clause she saw a ghost for the
word it. We can use tree diagrams to represent syntatic relationships among the clauses of a
sentence.

Constituency

Constituents are the units of language that work together to build a sentence. They can be
morphemes, phrases, and clauses. The vital constituents within a sentence are the subject and its
predicate. A subject is who/what the sentence is about, and a predicate is the part of a sentence
that adds detail or information to the subject (they usually contain a verb.)

"The man with the old brown jacket is the editor."

In this example, we can see two constituents: the subject (The man with the old brown jacket)
and its predicate (is the editor). The constituent "The man with the old brown jacket" is a noun
phrase that also contains the preposition phrase constituent "with the old brown jacket".

The phrase smart boys and girls can mean either smart boys and smart girls or smart boys and
(all) girls. This ambiguity of interpretation reflects the fact that the phrase mentioned has two
possible internal organizations for the same linear sequence of words. These internal
organizations differ as to whether the adjective smart modifies boys and girls or just boys. This
internal organization of a linear string of words called constituent structure. Constituent structure
refers to the group string of words into grammatical units; represent constituent structure using
tree diagrams.

Major Constituents of Sentences: Noun Phrases and Verb Phrases

In general, simpple sentences consists of two principal constituents. In each of preceeding

exampless, the constituent on the left is called an NP (Noun Phrase) and the one on the right is
called a VP (Verb Phrase). each NP contain a noun or pronoun and each VP contains a verb.
Functionally, each NP is a referring expression and each VP makes a predication. We identify
NPs and VPs by the slots they fill in a sentence or from their functions in the sentence. NPs also
can be identified by substitution procedures.
Phrase Structure Rule

A tree diagram with syntactic category information is called a phrase structure tree or a
constituent structure tree. This tree shows that a sentence is both a linear string of words and a
hierarchical structure with phrases nested in phrases. Phrase structure trees (PS trees, for short)
are explicit graphic representations of a speaker's knowledge of the structure of the sentences of
his language. PS trees represent three aspects of a speaker's syntactic knowledge:

1. The linear order of the words in the sentence

2. The identification of the syntactic categories of words and groups of words
3. The hierarchical structure of the syntactic categories (e.g., an S is com_posed of an NP
followed by a VP, a VP is composed of a V that may be followed by an NP, and so on).

Rule 1 says that a sentence (S) contains (immediately dominates) an NP and a VP in that order.
Rule 3 says that a verb phrase consists of a verb (V) followed by an NP. These rules are general
statements and do not refer to any specific VP, V, or NP. The subtrees represented by rules 1 and
3 are as follows:

A VP need not contain an NP object, however. It may include a verb alone, as in the following
sentences:

The woman laughed.

The man danced.
The horse galloped.
These sentences have the structure:

Thus a tree must have a VP that immediately dominates V, as specified by rule 4, which is
therefore added to the grammar:
4. VP -> V
The following sentences contain prepositional phrases following the verb:

The puppy played in the garden.

The boat sailed up the river.
A girl laughed at the monkey.
The sheepdog rolled in the mud.
The PS tree for such sentences is
To permit structures of this type, we need two additional PS rules, as in 5 and 6.

5. VP -> V PP

6. PP -> P NP

Another option open to the VP is to contain or embed a sentence. For example, the sentence "The
professor said that the student passed the exam" contains the sentence "the student passed the
exam." Preceding the embedded sentence is the word that, which is a complementizer (C). C is a
functional category, like Aux and Det. Here is the structure of such sentence types:

To allow such embedded sentences, we need to add these two new rules to our

set of phrase structure rules.

7. VP V CP

8. CP C S
CP stands for complementizer phrase. Rule 8 says that CP contains a comple_mentizer such as
that followed by the embedded sentence. Other complementizers are if and whether in sentences
like
I don't know whether I should talk about this.
The teacher asked if the students understood the syntax lesson.
that have structures similar to the one above.

Here are the PS rules we have discussed so far.

1. S → NP VP 5. VP →V PP
 2. NP→ Det N 6. PP → P NP

3. VP →V NP 7. VP → V CP

4. VP → V 8. CP →CS

Surfaces Structures and Deep Structures

Surface structure can be defined as the syntactic form they take as actual sentences. In the
other words, it is forms of sentences resulted from modification/ transformation. Consider these
sentences:

(1) You close the door.

(2) The door is closed by you.

(3) Close the door!

The first sentence is active, second is passive, and the last is imperative. However, if we take a
look those closely, you will find that those three are very closely related, even identical. They
seem to be identical, since they have the same underlying abstract representation that is called
deep structure. It is defined as an abstract level of structural organization in which all the
elements determining structural interpretation are represented. If we want to analyze the relation
of those three sentences, the first we have to know about the deep structure of them, since deep
structure is the input of transformation rules. We cannot apply transformation rules if we don’t
have deep structure. transformation rules are sets of rules which will change or move
constituents in the structures derive from the phrase structure rules.

(2)
SD (structure description) : 1234
SC (Structural change) : 3 4 + be 2+en 1
SS (Surface structure) :
 The door is closed by you
Note: the SC is passive transformation rules
(3) SD: 1234
SC: 0234
SS: Close the door!
Note: 0 is deletion
From the above example, it can be concluded that deep structure then is a pure representation of thematic
relations. Anything which is interpreted as the subject or object of a given predicate will be in the subject
or object position of that predicate at Deep structure no matter where it is found at Surface structure.