ENG2211 - Introduction to Syntactic Models

ENG2211
INTRODUCTION TO SYNTACTIC MODELS

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 ENG2211 - Introduction to Syntactic Models

COURSE OUTLINE
1. Introduction to Syntax
2. Grammatical Theories
3. Traditional Grammar
4. Systematic Functional Grammar
5. Transformational Generative Grammar

1. INTRODUCTION TO SYNTAX
Syntax deals with the structure of a language and
understanding the complex structure of a language. The four
components of the language: lexicon, phonology, syntax and
semantic should be studied. Phonology deals with sounds
(manual sound) dictionaries words (lexicon), grammar for
syntax and semantics for meaning.

The lexicon is also referred to as vocabulary. Lexicon is used

in different senses by different linguistics theorist, e.g. T.G.G.
refers to the lexicon as “component” – containing all the
information about the structural properties of the lexical items
in a language. In other grammatical models, it is referred to as
“features” and put in square bracket, e.g. Government
Binding Theory. The syntactic component of a word is for
one to know the word, e.g. “man”¸ what could precedes it e.g.
adjective, article or the word “go” as a class of intransitive
verb and all that is needed in its construction form (e.g. goes,
going, went, gone) etc. while the morphological information
of a word is it predication, either the word is in its stem i.e.

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 ENG2211 - Introduction to Syntactic Models

single root or has an prefix or suffix etc. e.g. house(s), man(ly),

hate-ful, use-ful, un-kind-ly, dis-like etc.

Phonology - is concerned with speech sound of a language

while phonetics is the study of sounds that occur in language.
There are twenty four (24) consonants and twenty (20) vowels
and diphthongs (12 monothongs and 8 dipthongs).

Syntax - the word syntax is derived from Greek word that

means “arrangement”. Syntax is the meaningful organization
of words into larger units such as phrases, clauses, sentences
and the analysis such units. The sentence is the largest unit
amenable to meaningful linguistic analysis [Analysis of
sentence and constituents].

GRAMMAR AND SYNTAX

Grammar is the linguistic knowledge competent speakers
possess which enable them to communicate in their language.
Syntax is concerned with the structural representation of
sentences in human languages. It constitutes a part of the
study of grammar. The syntactic component of a grammar
consists of mechanisms and principles that govern the
construction of sentences that provides a set of syntactic
structures that suggest the interpretation of semantic and
phonological components.

Grammatical sentences are the sentences that sound good to

the native speaker; formally, they are the string of words that
can be formed by the rules of syntactic components to

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produce all and only sentence that the native speaker judges to
be grammatical, for example:
my brother slept in the moon yesterday
slept my brother in the moon yesterday
The first sentence sounds odd but is grammatically correct,
while the second example it ungrammatical because the string
of words are not arranged using the syntactic rules (Syntactic
Components). Therefore syntactic rules/components are the
set of rules by which words and group of words may be strung
together to form grammatical sentences of the language

SYNTACTIC RULES
It is important for a native speaker of a language to acquire
rules of the languages in order to speak correctly. A sentence
can be grammatically constructed for it to be grammatical.
The grammaticality are some rules of grammar. For instance,
one should not end a sentence with a preposition and start a
sentence with a conjunction. Also - adverbs precedes the
adjectives in English, for example: horribly inadequate; while
Adjective precedes the noun and follow the article in English,
e.g. the big picture. The English sentences have the order
Noun – Verb – Noun; e.g. John likes yam.

Ungrammatical sentence will have all kinds of mistakes like

incomplete sentence, illicit co-joining of constituents which
ought to be linked together. Words are arranged within
sentence; within linguistic tradition either the “bottom-up”
or “top-down” (constituent) approach. The bottom-up
approach starts from the lower end of the domain of syntax
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i.e. morpheme to the utterance i.e. forming larger constituents.

This approach was largely developed by American linguist -
Zelling Harris one will classify the words in the utterance into
the various classes of words i.e. the traditional parts of speech,
e.g.
Determiner Noun Verb Determiner Noun
The hunter killed the antelope

This approach combines the morphemes  word  phrase 

clause  sentence. E.g. Those three boys are the food.
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Will be analyzed as:

[ate] (actually) [eat] + (past)
[three] + [boys] (actually [boy] + [plural]
[food]
[those] + [three] + [boys]
[ate] + [the] + [food]
[those] + [three] [boys] + [ate] + [the] + [food]
or represented this way:
 Those | three | boys | ate | the | food
 Those | three | ate | the | food
 Those three boys | ate | the food
 Those three boys ate the food
The end result after combining the morphemes progressively
as they go together is distinct unit, an utterance or a sentence.

“Top-Down” or Constituent Structure Approach

This approach tries to describe syntactic structures in terms of
relations between individual words. Here, sentences are
constructed from groups of words, often paired rather than
from single words added one onto the groups of words in two
cluster within the groups, layer upon layer of words, pairs and
pair groups, which eventually bound a sentence. E.g.
The man that I saw was wearing

The three-word sentence

|man that I saw|, |a blue jacket|, |the man that I saw|.

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TRADITIONAL GRAMMAR
Traditional grammar is also known as „school grammar‟
because of the collection of prescriptive rules and concept
about the structure of language that is commonly taught in
schools.

Traditional Grammar was first developed during the

Greece/Roman period 11-12th century. It is largely based on
the principles of Latin grammar not on current linguistic
research in English. The Latin and ancient Greek is used to
aid learning the languages and interpreting classical text. In
languages Traditional grammar seeks to describe how
particular languages are used and how people teach to speak
and read them.

Traditional grammar generally classified words into parts of

speech. They also described the patterns of words inflection
and the rules of syntax by which those words are combined
into sentences. The parts of speech are important in traditional
grammar, since the pattern of inflection and rules of syntax
depends on word‟s parts of speech. According to them eight
parts of speech: 1Noun, 2Verb, 3Pronoun, 4Adverb,
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Adjective, 6Conjunction, 7Preposition, and 8Interjection.
These groupings are based in categories of function and
meaning in Latin and other Indo-European languages.

Also, in Traditional Grammar, a sentence is analyzed as

having two parts a subject and predicate. The subject is the
thing being talked about and it occurs at the beginning of the
sentence.
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Traditional Grammar views language in two perspectives i.e.

the diachronic and synchronic perspective. Diachronic views
its approach in structural form of grammar that sentence
analysis is not considered as SVO i.e in active form, e.g.
AminaS cookedV the foodO but the O + be + ved + s e.g. the
foodO was cookedV by AminaS i.e in passive form.

From Synchronic Perspective, the sentence should be

analyzed into eight (8) parts of speech and should used in
analyzing a sentence and before the analysis, one has to
identify the sentence into subject and predicate.

According to them any sentence that cannot be analyzed into

subject and predicate is not a sentence. But some sentences
are not analyzed into subject and predicate, e.g.
Oh! Of course.
Imperative sentence like “come to my office” which is
believed in T.G.G. to have the subject but hidden “you”
should come to my office.

FEATURES OF TRADITIONAL GRAMMAR

Some of the features of traditional grammar are:
1. They prescribed rules for correct and proper usage e.g.
infinitive most not be split in sentence; „to go‟, should not
be, „to boldly go‟ but should be „to go boldly.‟
2. A sentence should never end with preposition (in, on, at
etc). e.g. who are you looking at? And a sentence never
begin with conjunction (but, and, while), i.e. “and you‟re
going home?”.
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3. They believe language is universal and since Latin and

Greek has eight parts of speech, English and other
languages should/must have eight parts of speech and this
is what structural linguistics refers to as Latinazation of
English.
4. They prescribed the definition of noun classes and
anything out of this wrong.
5. It emphasizes on writing in language as a tool for learning
not spoken which is given less consideration.

INADEQUACIES OF TRADITIONAL GRAMMAR

1. It accords written language primacy over speech which is

believed not so. It is believed that learning a language
starts from spoken form, knowing the rules before writing
i.e. written form.
2. The extension of the authority of ancient text over
contemporary text to the authority of languages reduced to
writing in earlier periods. It provides basis foundation to
improved modern linguistics. E.g. Plato discovered nouns
and verbs in the structure of language, though his nouns
are what we call subjects today and his verbs are what is
known as predicate.
Protagoras discovered gender which is classified into
masculine and feminine. Aristotle added conjunction to
Plato‟s nouns and verbs to designate items which are
neither nouns, nor verbs. He also introduced neuter gender
for objects that are neither male nor female.

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Also, Stocks School of Philosophers recognized not only

noun, verbs and conjunction but also articles. They sub-
divided nouns into proper, common nouns etc. Also, they
help to classify some of the inflections for noun e.g. boy,
boys; verbs e.g. kick-kicked and adjective happy-happier,
verb to intransitive and transitive systems. They further
described the case and voice whose active/passive
membership remains to date.
3. Its definition is notional that does not cover all words
around the world e.g. definition of noun words like
honesty, democracy etc. are neither place, person, animal,
nor thing, this is, there is tendency in following Latin
models even when they are no longer appropriate to a
particular languages.
4. Sentence ending with preposition is incorrect e.g. who are
you talking to? To them should be with to whom are
talking? They believed their analysis is ultimate.
5. It focuses on sentences to contain subject and predicate
and says nothing about the semantic context of a sentence.
6. According to them the earliest form of sentence is the
purist and more correct then contemporary language e.g.
oldest form of word is the truth and correct like nice-
foolish (old meaning) and present (nice-good) to be
meaningless i.e semantic differences.

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CONTRIBUTIONS OF TRADITIONAL GRAMMAR

1. It is clear to say that all other approaches of grammar
benefited from Traditional Grammar in terms of
terminology and methodology in analyzing a language,
e.g. subject, predicate, clauses, phrases, part of speech
that provide a very useful framework for establish the
structure of the sentence.
2. It helps in explaining every word in a sentence due to parts
of speech and identifies the structural components of the
sentences and describes the inflection forms of all inflected
words and explains the relationship of each word to other
words.

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SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL GRAMMAR

Halliday‟s Systemic Functional Grammar is an approach to
linguistics description which aims to provide a comprehensive
account on how language is used in context for
communication i.e. language in terms of meaning. According
to Halliday, grammar is functional in three distinct related
senses in its interpretation of texts, systems and the elements
of linguistics structure.

Firth and Malinousk‟s individual contribution to systemic

functional grammar are based on the idea of a language as a
social phenomenon i.e. behaviorism. In terms of utterances or
even a whole text in context of situation, they hold that the
meaning of language lays in its function or use. It was Firth
who built context of situation into a speedy linguistic theory
he built meaning as function in context as textual relation,
phonetics, grammar, lexicography and semantics and each
handles its own components of complexity in its appropriate
context. He further sees language in two sense: syntagmatic
and paradigmatic senses.

Syntagmatic sense or elements at syntagmatic level shows

the association or structural forms of words at the level
concern. A syntagma is an elementary segment within a text.
Segment can be a phoneme, a word, a grammatical phrase,
sentence or an event within a larger narrative structure.
While paradigmatic relation is a relation that holds between
elements of those category i.e. elements that can be
substituted for each other for example relations between
various sense relations like synonyms, antonyms etc. which
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contrast with syntagmatic relation that applies to relation

holding between elements that are combined with each other.

Halliday‟s earliest formation of systemic grammar was known

as scale and category grammar. Involves in systemic grammar
are: class, unity, structure and system.

a. Class - refers to concepts like noun, verbs, adverbs etc.

world class | part of speech.
b. Unity - refers to sentence, clause, group (phrase) words
and morpheme.
c. Structure - refers to concept like – subject, predicates,
adjunct, complement (S, P, C, A).
d. System - refers to personal pronoun, tenses, clause etc.

These categories are hierarchically arranged on a rank scale

from the highest to lowest.

RANK
Sentence

Clause

Phrase

Word

Morpheme

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THE PHRASE
A phrase is a group of word that may not have a verb in it, and
if there is a verb, it must be a non-finite verb, e.g. a phrase
makes no complete sense, e.g. in the market.
 The smart guy (group of word)
 Sleeping in darkness – ing form (has no auxiliary verb to make tense)
 To sleep in the room (to- form)
 Broken bottle, boiled yam (-ed form of the verb)

TYPES OF PHRASE
There are basically five types of phrases, which are: noun
phrase, verb phrase, adverb phrase, adjectival phrase and
prepositional phrase.

1. NOUN PHRASE - as pronoun replaces a noun, so also

does for Noun phrase. E.g.
a. David loves football, He support Arsenal
b. The young boy who lives beside us love football. He
supports Arsenal.
The main element in a noun phrase is the noun. A noun
phrase can consist of just a one word. E.g. boy, market, table
etc. The Noun Phrase has the basic structure of determiner,
pre-modifier, noun, and post-modifier.

Determiner Pre-modifier Noun Post-Modifier

The young boy who lives beside us.
In a Noun Phrase the compulsory elements is the NOUN, the
pre-modifier and post-modifier are optional and they depend
on the main word i.e. noun. Pre- Modifiers could be:
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The definite article „the‟ and indefinite article „a/an‟, e.g.

 the book
 an option
 a tree
or possessive pronoun like
 my book
 their option
 your ideas;
or demonstrative pronouns like
 this book
 that car, etc.
It can be numerals like:
 one page
 two books
 second chance
 fourth paragraph etc.
It can also be the quantifiers.
 each child
 every time
 some sugar
 all types, etc.
It can also be:
 many years
 more stories
 most houses, etc.

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More than one determiner can co-occur in a Noun Phrase, e.g.

 all the children
 every second week
 all my many relatives etc.

The pre-modifiers that are mostly adjectives occur before the

noun after the determiner in a Noun Phrase e.g.
 a green eye
 a young child
 some beautiful flowers
 some beautiful yellow flowers.
It can also be a noun not necessarily adjective, e.g.
 bank manager
 computer manual
Genitive noun also, e.g.
 the president‟s office
 David‟s homework
 the company‟s account etc.

The post-modifiers are usually noun phrase and occur after

the noun, they are mostly prepositional phrase, e.g.
introduced by of –
 a pieces of cheese
 the rotation of the earth
 a biography of Mozart.
It can be introduced by other prepositions e.g.
 the house on the hill
 the Museum in Kano

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 people without computer skill

 a coat with a brown collar.
Post-modifiers are not only introduced by prepositional
phrases but also relative clauses like;
 the boy who lives beside us
 the book which you bought etc.
They are also introduced by to- clause, e.g.
 a value to regulates the air flow
 a place to store your clothes, etc.

Post-modifiers can also co-occur like pre-modifiers e.g.

 a holiday for tour in Rome.
 the shop in the high street that sells fish.

The post-modifier can be restrictive or non-restrictive, e.g.

 The student who comes from Birmingham was given a

prize.

The post-modifier who comes from Birmingham did not

define exactly the student among all. It becomes a non-
restrictive post modifier. The restrictive post-modifier define
the noun, e.g. The student who got the highest grade exactly
defines the students given the prize. Post-modifiers can also
be a complement.

Noun phrase can function as a 1subject, 2subject

complement, 3direct object, 4indirect object, 5object
complement and 6adjunct.
Examples:

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1. The smart guy is good (subject of the verb “is”)

2. Amina is the beautiful girl (subject complement)
3. He wrote a letter to the father (object of the verb)
4. She gave Musa a letter to his father (object complement)
5. The programme is transmitted on air every Saturday
(complement of preposition)

In opposition to a noun i.e. when NP is said to be an

apposition to a noun, e.g. Umar Musa Yar‟Adua, the
President of Nigeria is late.

THE VERB PHRASE

The verb phrase consists of a main verb which may be
preceded by one or more auxiliary verbs, e.g. maya1 havea2
beena3 stolen MV. When two or more verbs occur in a VP they
have the relative order of model - perfective - progressive -
passive, but so unusually to find all the four auxiliary verbs in
a Verb Phrase.

Verb phrase are the finite or non-finite. It is finite if the verbs

inhibit tense (past or present), e.g.
 Simon leaves work at five
 Simon had left when I arrive
 Simon has been leaving early every day.
When two or more verb occur in a VP like has left, has been
leaving etc. only the first verbs indicates tense, and all other
verbs have non-finite forms.

Examples of non-finite verb forms are the base form often

introduced to, e.g. to leave, the ed form (left) and the –ing
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form (leaving). All these are non-finite form of the verb. The
distinction between finite and non-finite form of verb phrase
is important in the classification of clauses.

ADJECTIVAL PHRASE
The adjectival phrase has the basic structure of Pre-modifier,
Adjective and Post-modifier, e.g.

Pre-modifier Adjective Post-Modifier

Very reluctant to leave

The pre-modifier in an adjective phrase is mostly intensifiers

e.g. very, useful, extremely cold, wonderfully creative etc. A
noun phrase may function as pre-modifier if it occurs after the
adjective, e.g.
 three month old
 a metre long.
Post-modifier occurs after the adjective e.g.
 glad you could come
 guilty of murder glad to leave
 happy to oblige, etc.

Adjective phrase functions as:

1. Subject complement e.g.
 our aunt is quit ill,
 you were very lucky.
2. Pre-modifier of a noun, e.g.
 Emily was wearing a very old dress.

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3. Object complement, e.g.

 Ice cream always makes Simon ill,
 the gulf stream keeps our climate fairly mild.

ADVERB PHRASE
The adverb phrase has the basic structure of Pre-modifier,
Adverb, Post-modifiers.

Pre-modifier Adverb Post-Modifier

Very quickly Indeed

The pre-modifier in adverbial phrase are intensifiers too, e.g.

 very slowly
 extremely badly
 quite soon, etc.
Post-modifiers in adverb phrase are quite rare apart from,
indeed, only, enough e.g.
 funny enough
 Oddly enough
 naturally enough etc.
An adverb phrase functions as:
1. Pre-modifier of an adjective, e.g.
 David is extremely sensitive
 The meat is fat too salty etc.
2. It pre-modifies an adverb, e.g.:
 I spoke to join very reluctantly
 She drives far too slowly etc.

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3. Adjunct
 Suddenly, the factory closed and 200 jobs were lost.

PREPOSITIONAL PHRASES
The prepositional phrase has the basic structure of Pre-
modifier, Preposition Complement.
Pre-modifier Preposition Complement
Just after the game
The complements in prepositional phrase are mostly phrases
e.g.
 in London
 around the world
 across the street, etc.
Clauses can also function as the complement in prepositional
phrase e.g.
 It is a good way of reducing the debt
 He succeeded by working hard

The prepositional phrase consists of preposition followed by

its complement, while pre-modifiers in PP are rare, e.g.
 Just after the game
 Straight across the street
 Right around the building

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The prepositional phrase can function as:

1. Pre-modifier of a noun, e.g.:
 Caroline is reading a book on Renaissance painting
 The population of China growing, etc.
2. Adjunct, e.g.:
 I have got to see the doctor on Wednesday
 Before the war, he played football for Leeds united.
3. Subject complement, e.g.
Your lunch is in the microwave
The other gift is for James, etc.
4. Post-Modifier of an Adjective, e.g.
Sarah is very proud of her achievements
5. Object Complement, e.g.
She‟s got a drawing board on her knee
Sue has a job putting cards in alphabetical order

CLAUSES
Clause is a group of words with a finite verb forming part of a
sentence. A clause is either a subordinate or dependent
clause; or the main or independent clause.

1. SUBORDINATE OR DEPENDENT CLAUSE - a clause

is subordinate when it does not express a complete thought it
has to dependent on the main clause to give complete
meaning. It only forms part of the sentences; they are group of
words with a finite verb. A sentence which contains a
subordinate clause is called a complex sentence. They

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introduced by subordinating conjunctions like; because, if,

while, unless, as soon as etc.

o James left the room because he was angry

o I read a magazine while I was waiting
Not all subordinate clauses are introduced by subordinators,
e.g.:
 Paul knows that Amy prefers tennis
 Paul knows Amy prefer tennis (subordinate clause).

Also, if the verb in a clause is non-finite then the clause is

subordinate. The non-finite verbs have the base form of verb
introduced by to, the –ed form and –ing form. These three (3)
forms of non-finite verbs give the three subordinate clause
types:

a. To- Clause, e.g.

The road was widened to improve the traffic flows
To receive all the channels, you may need an antenna
In order to reduce loss, we have sealed the window frames.
b. –ed Clause, e.g.
Deprived of oxygen, plants will quickly die.
The warrior faced each other, dressed in black amour
c. –ing Clause, e.g.
Michelangelo painted lying on his back
The teacher stood in the doorway, saying nothings, etc.

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Types of Subordinate Clauses

1. Adjunct Clause - are subordinate clauses that function as
adjunct in sentence. They are introduced by subordinating
conjunctions, like although, because, if, since, when,
while etc.
if she came back, I will gave the materials
2. Relative Clause – introduced by one of the relative
pronouns, e.g. that, who, which, whose etc.
That book that I am reading is fascinating
The man who lives beside us is unwell
This is a company which does not exclude people
I have got a friend whose parents are divorced
3. Nominal-relative Clause - introduced by what, whatever,
whoever, where or how. E.g.
What you need is long holiday
Take whatever you want
Whoever wins the most seats will form a government
They have same function as Noun Phrase (NP).
4. Adverbial Clause - they modify the verb in sentence. E.g.
adverbial clauses are indicated by:
a. Time (when, after, as soon as, before, whatever, while,
since etc.);
b. Place (where, wherever etc.);
c. Condition (unless, if, until, provided);
d. Manner (as if, as etc.);
e. Reasons and Purpose (because, in order, that, so as,
so that etc.);
f. Concession (though, yet, although etc);
g. Result (that).
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2. The Main/Independent Clause: - this is type of clause

stands on its own, make complete sense/sentence. E.g.
 He is reading his books
 A‟isha came here yesterday

SENTENCES

Sentence - is a group of words which makes complete

sentence. It has a subject and a verb, e.g.
 Abuja is the capital of Nigeria.
 Amina lives in Lagos, etc.
TYPES OF SENTENCES
Structurally, there are four (4) types of sentence;

1. Simple Sentence - is the type of sentence that expresses

one thought, it has only one subject and predicate. All
main/independent clauses are simple sentence, e.g.
 A‟isha swept the house yesterday.
 Bukola is a good girl.
2. Compound Sentence - it consists of two or more
independent clauses or simple sentence. The clauses are
joined together by co-ordinating conjunctions like and, or,
nor, but etc. SS + SS.
 Amina killed the cat and Musa disposed the body.
 A‟isha is late to school, but the Principal allowed her
attend classes.

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3. Complex Sentence - it consists of one main clause and

one or more subordinate clauses, e.g. SS+SC
 When I went there, I found that Lola was cooking.
 I saw Amaka, when she was talking to her brother.
4. Compound-Complex Sentence - it is the type of sentence
which consists of two or more main clause and atleast
subordinate clause. It is also called a double sentence, e.g.
SS + SS + SC
 While the chief guest went on his speech, the audience
laughed at him and threw stones at him.
 I knew that Bukola had loved me but I did not have any idea
whether she was interested in marriage.

FUNCTIONAL SENTENCE TYPES

These are divided into five (5) kinds:
1. Declarative Sentence - is the sentence that states or
declares something. It is also an affirmative sentence, e.g.
 The earth moves around the sun
 Achebe is a writer
2. Interrogative Sentence - it ask question, e.g.
 What do you want?
 When do you return from Abuja?
3. Imperative Sentence - is a sentence that expresses a
command, request, entreaty or suggestion, e.g.
 Please post the letter (request)
 Stop there (command)
 You should help the poor (suggestion)
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4. Exclamatory Sentence - it expresses some strong or

sudden feelings, e.g.
 What a shame!
 How brilliant Victoria is!
5. Optative Sentence - it expresses a wish, probability or
supposition, e.g.
 She ought to have been married by now
 If I had wings, I would fly
 We wish she would be with us, etc.
OTHER FORMS OF SENTENCE ARE:
1. Existential Sentence - it shows the existence of an
entity/dummy. “There” begins on existential sentence and
most come at the beginning. When it comes at the end, it is
referred as adverbial, e.g.
 There is a boy on the field
 There is something called examination malpractice
2. Balance Sentence - a sentence that is a figure of rhetoric
in which values are juxtaposed, it holds two parts, the
positive aspect and the negative aspect, it proposes and
opposes, e.g.
 Man proposes, God disposes
 Many people have been oppressed in South Africa but
they have been liberated in Nigeria.
3. Loose Sentence/Periodic Sentence - a loose sentence put
information first, then elaborate, e.g.
 John slapped Mary, and she cried being of that

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4. Periodic Sentence - it keeps one in suspense, it delays the

major information, e.g.
 Since you are not coming with me, am going alone
5. Sentence Pragmatic - it occurs in a discourse, e.g.
He was severely wounded and it was late in the night, they
were doubling if the doctor has not returned for the day, so
they carried him on their shoulders and started running
towards the hospital. They quickened their steps as they
approached the door to the doors. Locked

The sentence pragmatics

6. Analytical Sentence - is the sentence that is necessarily
truth as a result of the sense of the words in it, e.g.
 All elephants are animals
[The truth of the sentence follows from the sentence
elephant and animals].
7. Synthetic Sentence - it is not analytic but may be true or
false depending on the way the world is, e.g.
 John is Ireland
(There nothing in the sense of John or Ireland or from
which the sentence is necessary true).
8. Cleft Sentence - it gives emphasis the theme, e.g.
 It was Mary that John slapped
i.e. Mary - theme not any other person.

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TRANSFORMATIONAL GENERATIVE GRAMMAR

Transformational grammar deals with the publication of
Chomsky‟s writings of books titled “Syntactic Structure”.

Instead of Chomsky to look at language as a social artifact been a

structuralist, he looked at language as part of the mind i.e. innate
ability. The mind is seen as a machine that cranks out language as
it has been programmed to do so, because of the presences of
Language Acquisition Device (LAD). Here, mentalism plays a
significant role in linguistics. Chomsky further discussed two basic
terms i.e. competence and performance.

 Competence - by Chomsky is the innate ability possessed by

all normal human beings which assist them in the production of
language.
 Performance – is the physical manifestation of that
competence subject to vigorous verbal slip, memory loss,
mispronunciation, errors etc. perfect grammar of a language
can only be found in the competence of a native speaker or
native speaker hearer.

Other keywords are the “Generative” and “Transformation”.

According to Chomsky, the speaker or user of a language must be
able to generate all correct sentences in the language to generate
therefore is to predict what could be correct sentence in that
language, the possible grammatical sentence in that language e.g.

Musa saw Aliyu | not – Aliyu Musa saw

I like ice cream | not - Like ice cream I
A Generative Grammar is not concerned with any actual set of
sentence of the language but with the possible set of sentence

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given a limited set of rules to produce unlimited set of grammatical

sentence. There are some generating rules for sentence e.g. we can
drive Noun Phrase (NP) and Verb Phrase (VP) from sentence e.g.
John is a smart boy. These rules are somewhere in the base
structure component of the grammar which generate sentence.

We have rules under generation. These are:

a. The phrase structure rule (PS rule)

b. Transformational rules

a. The phrase structure rule (PS rule) – are the rules that shows
the boarder in which words or sentences are arranged. They are in
simple tree:

S P > Rules

S = NP (aux) VP
NP Aux VP NP = Det N
VP = V (PP)
Det N V NP Adv PP = P (NP)
AdjP = Adj (NP)

Det N

With this tree, we can generate a lot of reasonable and

unreasonable sentences, e.g. “The house spoke good English
yesterday”. This sentence is odd and certain rules have to be
applied to be reasonable i.e. selected rules whose syntactic
component comes in to decide which word should come after the
phrase structure rules are:

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A‟isha is reading a book

S S
NP Aux VP
NP Aux VP V NP
Det N
A‟isha is reading A‟isha is reading a book

b. Transformational rules – this means transforming sentences

into another forms, e.g. active to passive sentence, simple to
complex sentence. According to Chomsky, a slight change in a
sentence is called transformation. Sentences generated are raw i.e.
the deep structure e.g.
S V O1 O2
Mommy gave daddy 10 pounds (Active sentence)
The base rule will change the sentence or transform the sentence to
passive, e.g.
Daddy was given 10 pounds by Mommy
These rules component gives what is in the mind of the speaker to
hearer.
Sentence can be transformed into various forms, e.g.
1. A‟isha saw Amina - T - Active sentence
2. Amina was seen by A‟isha - T - Passive sentence
3. Did A‟isha see Amina? - T - Interrogative
4. A‟isha didn‟t see Amina - T - Contradiction
5. Open the gate - T - Deletion
6. Certainly, he is the one - - Addition (sentence
with additional information)

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There are four types of transformational rules:

1. Re-ordering
2. Copying
3. Addition
4. Deletion

1. RE-ORDERING - it is the transformational rule that changes

the base sentences i.e. deep structure or active from of
sentence to alter question or imperative form and also
transforming S + V + O deep structure in traditional grammar
to O + be + ed + S i.e. surface structure i.e. passive sentence,
e.g. Amina called Aisha - base structure to question; Did
Amina call A‟isha? - T - Interrogative or Imperative
form e.g. Please Amina call A‟isha. From deep structure to
surface structure, e.g. The Hunter killed the antelope (deep
structure); The antelope was killed by the hunter (surface
structure).
2. COPYING - two sentences are realized or merged together by
copying them together,
e.g. The boy sees the bird, did he?
An assertive sentence & interrogative sentence to form a tag question
3. ADDITION - when a sentence appears with additional
information, e.g.
The fact that, He does not like the girl.
The sentence is clear but other part is an additional information
of the cleared fact that He does not like the girl.

4. DELETION - the deep structure of every imperative sentence

has a subject and finite element, e.g. “You will open the door”.
Sentence is in deep structure of the imperative sentence and it
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becomes “Open the door” when you apply the

transformational rule of deletion where the subject is deleted
leaving only the imperative form.

Chomsky has three (3) main components i.e. the syntactic

component, phonological and semantic components. Apart from
the syntactic components, the central part of the total grammar has
two interpretative components, i.e. the phonological and semantic
interpretation.

The Phonological Interpretation is derived from the surface

structure by means of phonological rules like intonation, stress
which give the form of the sentence and semantic interpretation is
gotten from deep structure of the sentence through the projection
rules of sentence i.e. where a word in a deep structures has more
than one interpretation, when this projection rules are applied it
gives unlimited number of sentence from a limited number of
sentences, e.g. The man hit the colourful ball.

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EXTENDED STANDARD THEORY (1975)

This theory came about as a result of changes or argument by some
scholars that some aspect of meaning mainly involving negation,
quantification, focus etc. appeared more directly relatable to
surface than deep structure and therefore proposes that the
projection rule should specify meaning on surface structure than
deep structure.

Deep Structure Projection rules Semantic

Base rules interpretation

Transformational rules

Surface structure

Phonological
Phonological Rules
Interpretation

 Deep Structure - is an abstract level of structural organization

in which all the element determine structural interpretation are
represented.
 Surface Structure – is the overt (written or spoken)
realization.

WEAKNESSES OF GENERATIVE GRAMMAR

1. It restricts itself in the analysis of only five phrases NP, VP, ADVP,
AdjP and PP without considering IP and GP.
2. It fails to consider connectors (and, while, but etc.) in the analysis.
3. It fails to generate any ill-formed structure.
4. It claims that the deep structures of sentences in all languages are the
same.

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5.

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