SYNTAX

Dr. Comfort Pratt

 DEFINITION

The study of the structure of

sentences.
 
 CaTEgOrIEs OF wOrDs
Words in a language belong to
different categories.
Lexical Categories

Non-lexical or Functional Categories

 PHRASE, CLAUSE, SENTENCE
Phrase
A syntactic unit that is formed by
combining words together, which has
a word of a specific category acting as
its head.

Ex: the man

on the moon
has a tattoo
on his face
Types of phrases
 Noun phrase
these surreys
 Verb phrase
perfectly represent
 Adjective phrase
very elegant
 Prepositional phrase
in the past
Clause
Any syntactic unit which includes a
verb and the elements that
accompany it.

Ex: Some grouches in the squadron

rebelled.
The explorers saw a lake.
Sentence
The largest independent unit of
syntactic analysis.
Ex:
1. The coachman left the surrey in the

driveway and the guests went in.

2. The officials blew their whistles when
they apprehended the thieves.
Coordination
Subordination
Sentence Structure