A SHORT OVERVIEW OF

ENGLISH SYNTAX
 INTRO:
 Syntax is from a Greek word meaning order or
arrangement.
 Syntax deals with the relation of words to each

other as component parts of a sentence or a

clause, and with their proper arrangement to
express clearly the intended meaning.
 SENTENCE AND CLAUSE:
 We distinguish two main types of sentence: a
clausal sentence, which has the form of a single
clause, and a compound sentence, which has the
form of two or more coordinated clauses, usually
joined by a coordinator (such as and, or, but):

 a- Sue went to London last week. [clausal stc.]

 b -Sue went to London last week and her father

went with her.    [compound stc.]

 SENTENCE AND CLAUSE:
 We read the text which you recommended

Is a clausal sentence even though it contains two clauses.

Because one clause (which you recommended) is part of the other, rather
than separate from it (more specifically, the which you recommended is
part of the noun phrase the text which you recommended);

To conclude that, you may do the following:

We read the text. (which one?)
The text which you recommended. (noun phrase)

the larger clause is thus We read the text which you recommended, and
this IN FACT constitute the whole sentence, like that in
“Sue went to London last week”
 SENTENCE AND CLAUSE:
 The fact that the two types of sentence are
distinguished in terms of clauses implies that we
take the clause to be a more basic unit than the
sentence, which reflects the fact that in speech it
tends to be more difficult to determine the
boundaries between sentences than the
boundaries between clauses.
Canonical and Non-Canonical
Clauses
 We can describe the structure of clauses most
economically if we distinguish between the most
basic and elementary kinds of clause, which we
call canonical clauses,

 The idea is that we can present the analysis more

clearly if we begin with canonical clauses,
describing them directly, and then deal in turn
with the various kinds of non-canonical clause,
describing these indirectly, in terms of how they
differ from canonical clauses.