English Linguistics.

Unit 3 Mª del Rosario Caballero – Macarena Rodríguez

UNIT 3: ENGLISH SYNTAX

3.1. WHAT IS SYNTAX?

Having established the structure of words at the morphological level, we can go on to

examine how words can be put together to form larger grammatical units. It is evident that a
language is not simply an inventory of words. Words combine to form various larger units
which, in turn, combine to form texts. In other words, language is highly patterned in the
sense that sentences are made up of individual groups of words which form patterns with
other groups of words. In other words, a sentence is not just an arbitrary list of words, but a
sequence of words whose ordering with respect to one another follows certain rules.

Another basic concept in linguistics is that although there is no end to the number of
sentences in a language, the ways in which words may be combined to form sentences is not
endless. In other words, a speaker’s internal grammar consists of a finite set of rules and
principles that form the basis for his/her ability to produce and comprehend the unlimited
number of sentences of his/her language. These rules and principles capture the
regularities in the language.

These patterns can be more or less fixed and usually follow a certain order –that is, language
is intrinsically linear in that spoken or written units do not overlap but follow a more or less
fixed and linear order. It is the task of syntax to establish the set of rules that specify which
combinations of words constitute grammatical strings and which do not, as well as how
different combinations carry different meanings.

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English Linguistics. Unit 3 Mª del Rosario Caballero – Macarena Rodríguez

In sum, syntax is concerned with

• how words and phrases are arranged;

• how words and phrases are grouped (or tied ) together;
• syntactic categories: kinds of words and phrases (noun, verb, etc.); and
• syntactic relationships: how words and phrases relate to each other (subject, direct
object, modifier, head).

Have a look at the following sentences:

(a) weekend going am to I next disco the*

(b) I would like to marry you
(c) I would like you to marry

These sentences illustrate that the message conveyed by sentences depends not only on the
meaning of individual lexical items (as clearly illustrated by sentence (a), which is not
grammatical in English) but also on syntactic structure. In fact, as we will see later, some
linguistic approaches claim that it is impossible to separate lexis from syntax and semantics
(i.e., that it is impossible to discriminate distinct levels in the grammar of a language).

3.2. BASIC CONCEPTS

In the organisation of the grammar of language, we must consider three important concepts:
rank, constituency, and class. Here we will see the first two, and the next section will deal
with class.

Rank

In order to state or describe general rules about the construction of sentences, it is necessary
to refer to units smaller than the sentence itself. In other words, all the elements in the
grammatical system are organised according to different rank levels. For example: sentence
and word are two different ranks of grammatical organisation: word is smaller in rank and
sentence is bigger. Rank is then a quality measured in terms of their higher or lower position
in importance. When we talk about grammatical elements, we refer to them as units which
can de defined as any stretch of language which (a) constitutes a semantic whole and (b) has a
recognised pattern repeated regularly in speech and writing. Therefore, both word and
sentence are units that are different in a rank scale.

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English Linguistics. Unit 3 Mª del Rosario Caballero – Macarena Rodríguez

According to this rank scale, we have 6 meaningful units which combine among themselves
to make up bigger units in rank:

• Text: consists of one or more sentences

• Sentence: consists of one or more clauses
• Clause: consists of one or more groups/phrases
• Group or Phrase: consists of one or more words (and/or groups and clauses)
• Word: consists of one or more morphemes
• Morphemes: consists of one or more phonemes

Constituency

This relationship among units to make up bigger units is known as constituency. Example:

Text: At the lake shore there was another rowboat drawn up. The two Indians stood
waiting. Nick and his father got in the boat and the Indians shoved it off and one of them
got in to row.
Sentence: Nick and his father got in the boat and the Indians shoved it off and one of
them got in to row.
Clause: the Indians shoved it off
Group/Phrase: the Indians
Word: Indians
Morphemes: Indian + s

In other words, all the units above are constituents of the text (the unit that stands highest in
the hierarchy). In turn, all the units that may be distinguished within the sentence “Nick and
his father … to row” are constituents of the sentence.

One way of indicating constituency is by bracketing, as in (1) below); another is by drawing

what is known as a tree diagram, as shown in (2):

(1) [The child] [found] [the puppy]

(2) The child found the puppy

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English Linguistics. Unit 3 Mª del Rosario Caballero – Macarena Rodríguez

How can be these different units be further described and classified?

3.3. CATEGORIES IN SYNTAX

In syntactic analysis we deal with different types of unit or what may be referred to as
syntactic categories. The classification of these categories into distinct types varies according
to the different schools or approaches (paradigms) in linguistics. Leaving aside their
differences, we may consider three main types of categories in syntactic analysis.

Word classes or ‘lexical’ categories

These were traditionally known as the parts of speech, and included nouns, verbs, adjectives,
and so on. As in morphology, where we distinguished between content morphemes and
function morphemes, we will likewise divide lexical categories into two groups: content
words and function words.

Content words

Content words are those which contribute to the meaning of the sentence in some substantive
way. The categories of content words in English are nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs. We
also call these open lexical categories because new words can be (and are) added to them all
the time.

(1) Nouns

These can refer to real, imaginary, and abstract things, substances, people, places,
actions and events. Examples: book, unicorn, linguistics, sincerity, anger, water, dust,
teacher, Joe, ocean, New York, competition, or wedding.

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English Linguistics. Unit 3 Mª del Rosario Caballero – Macarena Rodríguez

In English, there are a number of common characteristics of nouns that can be used to
identify them. If they refer to things that can be counted, nouns can be identified
morphologically because they can form a plural, often adding an –s. in English, nouns
are the only open lexical category to form the plural. We can also identify nouns
syntactically: they can occur with articles and demonstratives (e.g. this, that, the,
those, etc.) and can be modified with descriptive words like adjectives.

(2) Verbs

Verbs refer to actions, events, processes, and states of being. They are words like sing,
walk, finish, formulate, grow, wish, enjoy, exist and be. As with nouns, we can identify
verbs based on the sort of morphological marking that they can take. In English, verbs
express time and take particular forms corresponding to particular times. For example,
they often express the past by adding –ed (exception: the irregular verbs). By adding
-ing to a verb, we indicate an ongoing action, and by adding –ed or –en we can
express a completed action. Syntactically, we can identify verbs because they work
with auxiliaries like should or can.

(3) Adjectives

These are used to describe the things, ideas, etc. that nouns refer to. They can have
comparative and superlative forms. One hallmark of adjectives is that they can be used
in sentences with a form of the verb to be (e.g. the book is very funny) and can be
modified by adverbs.

(4) Adverbs

These are words like quickly, obviously, often, maybe and tomorrow, which are used
to express manner (e.g. quickly), describe the attitude or judgement of the speaker (e.g.
unfortunately), or indicate temporal frequency (e.g. often), among other relations. Like
adjectives, some adverbs can be modified by words like very and too. In turn, adverbs
can modify adjectives (e.g. really nice), verbs (e.g. she writes carefully), other adverbs
(e.g. very quickly), as well as entire sentences (e.g. Hopefully, the sun will come up
tomorrow).

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English Linguistics. Unit 3 Mª del Rosario Caballero – Macarena Rodríguez

Function words

Function words in English are prepositions, pronouns, determiners, auxiliary verbs, and
conjunctions. These categories are closed categories because they do not allow new members
(or, at least, it is very uncommon that a new member gets added to one of these categories).

(1) Determiners

Determiners are used to express definiteness (e.g. the, those), indefiniteness (e.g. a),
possession (e.g. my, our), and quantity (e.g. every, fifteen,) among other things.
Determiners always appear before nouns, although sometimes adjectives are placed
between determiners and nouns.

(2) Prepositions

Prepositions are words that are used to express a number of different roles, including
instrument (e.g. with), possessor (e.g. of), as well as various spatial and temporal
relations (e.g. in, on, during, before). They appear before nouns phrases.

(3) Auxiliary verbs

These are words like can, will, must, have, and do, and express notions of time,
necessity, possibility etc. they are used in sentences along other verbs.

(4) Pronouns

The following are some of the most common pronouns: I, me, you, him, her, she, it
we, us, them. There are other pronouns as well such as some as in Some like it hot.
Pronouns are used to refer to particular nouns or noun phrases.

(5) Conjunctions

Conjunctions are words like and, but, yet, so, and or that are used to link together
different elements within a phrase or sentence.

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English Linguistics. Unit 3 Mª del Rosario Caballero – Macarena Rodríguez

Phrasal categories

This is a grammatical concept describing how words can combine in a meaningful way in
units smaller than clauses and sentences. Phrases are classified according to the class of the
word operating as the main element (called head). In English we have the following:

• Nominal Phrase (NP)

• Verbal Phrase (VP)
• Adjectival Phrase (ADJP)
• Adverbial Phrase (ADVP)
• Prepositional Phrase (PP)

The general structure for all groups is that of head and modifier(s). Modifiers can occur
before or after the head, and are referred in various ways according to different grammatical
approaches. Thus, whereas Functional Systemic Grammar talks about pre-modifiers and post-
modifiers or qualifiers, Transformational Syntax talks about specifiers (occurring before the
head) and complements (attached after the head).

Clausal categories

Like sentences, clauses are also expressions which contain a subject and a predicate. All
clauses must contain a tensed verb. Clauses are of two types: independent and dependent (or
subordinate). An independent clause is one which can stand alone; hence, a sentence is an
independent clause. A dependent clause is one which occurs in conjunction with an
independent clause. When a sentence consists of only one independent clause, it is called a
simple sentence; when it consists of two or more independent clauses and no dependent
clauses, it is called a compound sentence; and when it contains one or more dependent
clauses, it is called a complex sentence. The following table illustrates these types of clause:

INDEPENDENT DEPENDENT

A clause that is complete in itself and, A clause that depends on another to have
therefore, does not depend on another for full meaning.
its meaning.
Example: Example:
They locked up their house [before they They locked up their house before they went
went on holidays]. on holidays

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English Linguistics. Unit 3 Mª del Rosario Caballero – Macarena Rodríguez

FINITE NON-FINITE

A clause whose verb expresses tense, A clause whose verb does not express tense,
person and number. person or number.
Example: 3 Types of non-finite clause:
They locked up their house //before they § infinitive
went on holidays. e.g. I don’t want to go to the party with
When she got home after work //she had him.
a very long bath. § -ing clause
e.g. Smoking is bad for the health
§ past participial clause
e.g. She sat on a chair, lost in her
thoughts

SENTENCE STRUCTURE

Syntax also provides a functional description of sentences, that is, specifies what functions
their constituents have in sentence structure. The independent clause (simple sentence) has
two basic constituents: the subject and the predicate.

The plane is taking off.

Tom disappeared suddenly after the concert.
All the women in the party wore very nice dresses.

Not all the elements within these two constituents are equal in terms of semantic and syntactic
status, that is: some elements are obligatory or nuclear, and some elements are optional or
non-nuclear. For instance, subjects are syntactically obligatory in English sentences, and
some elements in the predicate are both syntactically and semantically obligatory (both things
are related) because without them, the verbs (a) do not make sense at all, or (b) change
meaning. One of the syntactically and semantically obligatory elements in the Predicate is the
verb or predicator.

For instance, the sentences below would be incomplete and unacceptable in English if the
objects or complements were omitted:

* Your brother seems [...]

* You can put the dish [...]

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English Linguistics. Unit 3 Mª del Rosario Caballero – Macarena Rodríguez

Other verbs can occur with or without complements/objects:

They are eating or They are eating dinner

We elected her or We elected her our delegate
He’s teaching or He’s teaching chemistry He’s teaching me chemistry

Finally, some verbs change meaning depending on the objects/complements occurring with
them:

I found her a very interesting person versus I found her

She called him her favourite waiter versus She called him

The obligatory elements of the predicate can be classified into two main broad classes:
objects and complements. The main distinctions between them are summarised below:

OBJECTS COMPLEMENTS
They refer to participants in the event They predicate something on the Subject
different from the Subject. or the Direct Object of the sentence.
There is no concordance between Subject There is concordance between
and Objects in terms of number or gender. Subject/Object and Complement.
They can become Subjects in passive
transformations. They cannot become Subjects in passive
E.g. I saw your boyfriend in the street. clauses (verbs are not transitive).
Your boyfriend was seen by me.
They can be realised and substituted by
pronouns. They cannot be realised or substituted by a
E.g. I phoned my sister yesterday. pronoun.
I phoned her yesterday.
There are three main types of
There are three types of object: Direct Complement: Subject Complement (Cs),
Object (Od) and Indirect Object. Object Complement (Oc) and Predicator
Complement (Cp).

Objects and complements may belong to diverse syntactic categories.

Finally, what are sometimes referred to as adverbials are non-obligatory constituents of

sentences. These can (a) express an optional circumstance concerning the process expressed
in the clause (e.g. My father bought me a car last year after finishing my studies), or (b)
express a comment by the speaker/writer on the clause (e.g. Unfortunately, I cannot go to
your party tonight).

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English Linguistics. Unit 3 Mª del Rosario Caballero – Macarena Rodríguez

3.4. APPROACHES TO SYNTAX

So far we have seen some of the basic notions dealt with in syntax. However, as pointed out
earlier, syntactic analysis differs greatly from one school of thought to another. Two main
tendencies may be discerned (discussed later in the course), as summarised below:

• The generative/transformative view (recently evolved into what is known the

Minimalist program)

Syntax can be studied in its own right. There are purely syntactic principles and
constraints.
The overarching goal is to arrive at universal principles governing the structure
of all languages and particular types of languages.
Seek explanations that relate (often highly abstract) underlying representations
("D-structure") to surface forms ("S-structure"). (But generativists may
disagree on the degree of abstractness that is permissible.)
• Cognitive and functional, usage-based views
Syntax can only be studied in terms of its communicative functions.
One important goal is to arrive at universal tendencies governing the ways in
which languages or particular types of languages use grammar to package
information.
Seek explanations that are based mainly or entirely on surface forms (usage-
based approaches).

3.5. PRACTICAL CASES

1) Indicate the category of each word in the following sentences

1. That glass suddenly broke.

2. A jogger ran towards the end of the lane.
3. These dead trees might block the road.
4. The detective hurriedly looked through the records.
5. The peaches never appear quite ripe.
6. Gillian will play the trumpet and the drums in the orchestra.

2) Determine to which class of group each of the following belongs:

1. the anti-terrorist laws

2. not quite hot enough
3. within three quarters of an hour

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English Linguistics. Unit 3 Mª del Rosario Caballero – Macarena Rodríguez

4. pretty soon
5. aren’t playing
6. wide awake
7. the urban young
8. in spite of the bad weather
9. his departure from Moscow
10. over there

3) Determine which of the bracketed sequences into the following sentences form
constituents

1. [The tragedy] upset the entire family.

2. They hid [in the cave]
3. The [computer was very] expensive.
4. [The town square and the civic building] will be rebuilt.
5. Jane [left town]
6. The goslings [swam across] the lake.
7. We ate our lunch [near the river bank]
8. Steve looked [up the number] in the book.
9. The [island has been] flooded.
10. I love [peanut butter and bacon sandwiches]
11. The environmental [movement is gaining momentum].

4) Analyse the following sentences by identifying clauses and groups:

1. Most probably, the students will be producing some very good work.
2. In my opinion, the changes were made too quickly.
3. He opened the door and strode into the hall.
4. Columbus may not have discovered America, but his accomplishments brought the
medieval world into a new era.
5. At the start of the week, hopes for a peaceful conclusion to the dispute were quite
high.

3.6. ORAL PRESENTATION AND CLASS DISCUSSION

Readings

1. Chapter 3 from Günther Radden & René Dirven (2007) Cognitive English Grammar.
Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
2. Cognitive Processes in Grammaticalization. Joan Bybee. In Michael Tomasello (2003).
The New Psychology of Language. Vol. 2. Mahwah,, NJ & London: Lawrence Erlbaum.

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