Syntax

6. STRUCTURES LARGER THAN

WORDS

Objectives:
 Show the internal structure of English phrases
 Identify the types of English phrases
 Test the internal structure of English phrases
 Syntax
• While morphology studies the internal structures of
words in isolation, syntax treats their order in
combination.
• Originally, the term syntax is taken from the ancient
Greek “syntaxis” which literally means arrangement
or setting out together.
• In traditional grammars, it referred to that part of
grammar which dealt with the ways which words are
arranged to show connections of meanings within
sentences.
 Syntax Cont’d ---
• In other words, syntax is the study of linguistics items
larger in size than words.
• Such items include phrases, incomplete clauses and
complete sentences.
• In line with this, Todd (1987) states that morphology
is concentrated on the isolated words in the
language but syntax deals with the words in their
combination.
• And British linguists often use the term ‘grammar’ for
same level of language that is referred to as ‘syntax’
by many Americans.
 Syntax Cont’d ---
• According to this scholar, syntax focuses on the level of
language that examines how words combine into the three
larger units such as the phrase, the clause and the
sentence.
• In line with this, another scholar defines syntax as it is the
organization of words into phrases and phrases into
sentences.
• “It is the study of grammatical relations between words
and other units within a sentence” (Matthews 1997/2005
Oxford Concise Dictionary of Linguistics.
• Oxford: OUP). Now we’re moving on from structure at a
word level, to structure at a phrasal and sentence level
which is dealt with in syntax
 Cont’d ---
Please try to define the terms:
 Noun Phrase,
 Verb Phrase,
 Adjective Phrase,
 Adverb Phrase, and
 Prepositional Phrase

Can we have a single word phrase in English?

 Structures of English phrases

 A grammar that uses phrase structure rules is

a type of phrase structure grammar.
 Phrase structure rules as they are commonly
employed operate according to the
constituency relation, and a grammar that
employs phrase structure rules is therefore a
constituency grammar; as such, it stands in
contrast to dependency grammars, which are
based on the dependency relation.
he following eight rules are incorporated in phrase structure

1. S NP+VP
2. VP V+NP
3. NP (Det)+ (ADJ)+(N)
4. N N. of Person, place or thing, or (Proper Ns. - John, The Nile, Tana,
Ethiopia, Addis A.,etc.);
(Common Ns. – man, lake, cat, apple, king, book, city, plant, river, village,
etc.);
(Collective Ns. – police, public, committee, jury, cattle, government, people,
etc.);
(Material Ns. – milk, gold, cloth, etc.), &
Abstract Ns. – wisdom, honesty, poverty, painting, etc.) & plural Ns.
5. V (VT- eat, write, etc. & VI – walk, sleep, etc.) + Compound
Verbs or V+ verb complements)
6. Det. – (Definitive Art – the; Indefinitive Art – a/an/some,
demonstrative - this/that/ these/those; VL – verb to bes
& become, etc.).
 Definition (for more clarification)
(Verbs (V): Finite verbs are verbs which indicate the tense, person,
number of an element in the sentence;
e.g.1/She dreams of retirement
2/I walked home yesterday;
We also have verb forms which don’t express tense – infinitive.
E.g./Harry wants to leave the country.
In the future tense, we also use the infinitive form, but without “to”.
Keelin will eat the chocolate cake later.
Here, we appear to have two verbs - what’s going on?
The “will” is known as an auxiliary verb.
“will” is telling us information about the tense, but “eat” is the main
verb.
English is an SVO (Subject Verb Object) language, so if we have a
declarative sentence, the verb can usually be found directly after the
 Definition Cont’d ---
We have multiple kinds of nouns, with multiple
distinctions.
A noun that can take a plural is known as a count noun
house - houses, cat - cats, etc.
However, we also have mass nouns. These are nouns
that cannot be pluralised:
water - *waters, gold - *golds, etc.
Another distinction is abstract vs concrete
Abstract = luck, love, hate, justice
concrete = bottle, floor, apple, etc.
 Definition Cont’d ---
How do we determine if something is a noun?
Nouns can be combined with a determiner
definite = the, indefinite = a/an/some, demonstrative
= this/that/ these/those
Proper nouns (names) don’t fit this criterion
*The Keelin
But, if we modify the noun slightly, it works
She is no longer the Keelin I used to know
Verbs cannot combine with determiners:
* The walked
*A breathes
 Cont’d ---

 Meaning that the constituent is separated

into the two sub-constituents A and B.
 Some examples for English are as follows:
 S (sentence)→ NP (noun phrase) VP (verb
phrase)
 NP (noun phrase) → (Det) N1
 N1 → AP (adjective phrase) N1 PP
(prepositional phrase)
 Structures of English phrases

Example:
Colorless green ideas sleep furiously
 Structures of English phrases

NP VP

Adjective NP Verb Adverb

colorless Adjective Noun Sleep furiously

gree
ideas
n
 Cont’d

 A constituent is any word or combination of

words that is dominated by a single node.
Thus, each individual word is a constituent.
 Further, the subject NP Colorless green ideas,
the minor NP green ideas, and the VP sleep
furiously are constituents.
 Phrase structure rules and the tree structures
that are associated with them are a form of
immediate constituent analysis.
 Types of English phrases

 A phrase is a group of words without both a subject

and predicate.
 Phrases combine words into a larger unit that can
function as a sentence element.
For example, a participial phrase can include
adjectives, nouns, prepositions and adverbs, as a
single unit, however, it functions as one big adjective
modifying a noun (or noun phrase).
 A. Noun Phrase
 A noun phrase consists of a noun and all of its
modifiers, which can include other phrases.
Example:
 “The crazy old lady in the park feeds the
pigeons every day.”
 A. Noun Phrase

Appositive Phrase –
 “Bob, my best friend, works here” or “My best friend Bob
works here.”
 An appositive (single word, phrase, or clause) renames
another noun, not technically modifying it.
Gerund Phrase –
 “I love baking cakes.” A gerund phrase is just a noun phrase
with a gerund as its head.
Infinitive Phrase –
 “I love to bake cakes.” An infinitive phrase is a noun phrase
with an infinitive as its head. Unlike the other noun phrases,
however, an infinitive phrase can also function as an adjective
or an adverb.
 B. Verb Phrase –

 The verb phrase can refer to the whole

predicate of a sentence (I was watching my
favorite show yesterday) or just the verb or
verb group (was watching).
 C. Adverbial Phrase-

 The adverbial phrase also has two definitions;

some say it’s a group of adverbs (very
quickly), while others say it’s any phrase
(usually a prepositional phrase) that acts as an
adverb.
 D. Adjectival Phrase

 As with adverbial phrases, adjectival phrases

can either refer to a group of adjectives (full
of toys) or any phrase (like a participial or
prepositional phrase) that acts as an
adjective.
 E. Participial Phrase

 “Crushed to pieces by a sledgehammer, the

computer no longer worked” or “I think the
guy sitting over there likes you.” A participial
phrase has a past or present participle as its
head. Participial phrases always function as
adjectives.
 F. Prepositional Phrase

 “The food on the table looked delicious.” A prepositional

phrase, which has a preposition as its head, can function as
an adjective, adverb, or even as a noun.
Absolute Phrase –
 “My cake finally baking in the oven, I was free to rest for
thirty minutes.” Unlike participial phrases, absolute phrases
have subjects and modify the entire sentence, not one
noun.
 Almost a clause, the absolute phrase can include every
sentence element except a finite verb. For example, “My
cake finally baking in the oven” would be its own sentence
if you just added one finite verb: “My cake was finally
baking in the oven.”
 Cont’d ---

 Noun (books)
 determiner + noun (those books)
 pre-modifier + noun (new books)
 determiner + pre-modifier + noun (some long books)
 noun + post-modifier (books on astronomy)
 determiner+noun+post-modifier (some books on
astronomy)
 pre-modifier + noun + post-modifier (popular books on
astronomy)
 determiner + pre-modifier + noun + post-modifier
(some popular books on astronomy)
 Testing for Structure

 In syntactic analysis, a constituent is a word or a group of

words that functions as a single unit within a hierarchical
structure.
 The analysis of constituent structure is associated mainly
with phrase structure grammars, although dependency
grammars also allow sentence structure to be broken
down into constituent parts. The constituent structure of
sentences is identified using constituency tests.
 These tests manipulate some portion of a sentence and
based on the result, clues are delivered about the
immediate constituent structure of the sentence. Many
constituents are phrases.
 Substitution/Replacement

 Substitution means that we try to substitute a group of

words by a single word. If we can do that, and preserve
grammaticality (but not necessarily the meaning!), it means
that this particular group of words is indeed a constituent.
 Substitution with pro-forms: A special case of substitution is
when the sequence of words in question is substituted by a
pro-form (a pronoun or a word with a similar function).
 The student bought a laptop.
 She bought that.
 Mr Heathcliff little imagined how my heart warmed towards
him when I beheld his black eyes withdraw so suspiciously
under their brows as I announced my name.
 Constituency tests
• Replacement tests: we can use slightly different
tests to test the constituency of different phrase
types
• NPs can be replaced by pronouns
• PPs can be replaced by adverbs
• Adj Ps can be replaced by “so”
• VPs can be replaced by “do so”
 Movement
 Movement here means that if we can move a group of words as a
single unit to another position in the sentence, and retain both the
grammaticality and the meaning, then the group of words in
question is a constituent. The term ‘move’ should be taken rather
loosely since it actually means that we paraphrase the sentence in
such a way that the group of words in question appears in a
different position, relying on our knowledge of English.
 Movement: a constituent as a whole, can be placed in a different
position in a sentence
 The children stopped [at the corner] PP.
 [At the corner] PP, they stopped.
 John bought a pink bike for his sister last year.
 For his sister, John bought a pink bike last year.
 It was for his sister that John bought a pink bike last year.
 Clefting: Change sentences to “it was...”
 Coordination
 if a group of words can be joined to another
group of words by a conjunction such as and, or,
or but, they constitute a phrase.
The little rabbit (and the big squirrel) ran down the
hill.
The little rabbit ran down the hill (and passed the
river bank).
The little rabbit ran down the hill (and by the river
bank).
The children [stopped at the corner] VP and [looked
both ways] VP.
 Single-word phrases

 an individual noun (N), such as Susan in Susan

laughed, will project up to an intermediate level
(N', noun) and a maximal level (NP, noun phrase),
which means that Susan qualifies as a phrase. (The
subject slot in the sentence is required to be filled
by an NP, so regardless of whether the subject is a
multi-word unit like the tall woman, or a single
word performing the same function, like Susan, it
is called a NP in these theories.)
 This concept of the phrase is a source of confusion
for students of syntax.
 8. THEMATIC/SEMANTIC ROLES

Objectives: at the end of this chapter as students,

you will be able to:
 Identify different thematic roles
 Identify the relationship between thematic roles
 Use semantic roles to define sentences
 Identify meaning and semantic role
 8. THEMATIC/SEMANTIC ROLES
 The concept of thematic roles (or Ɵ-roles) is a means
of accounting for the functions of arguments in
respect to the predicate; thematic roles are the
“grammatically relevant semantic relations between
predicates and arguments” (Frawley 1992: 201). This
approach was first proposed by Charles Fillmore (1968,
1977) and was originally known as case grammar.
See the sentences below:
 The chef roasted the meat (over the fire).
 The fire roasted the meat.
 The meat roasted (over the fire).
 8. THEMATIC/SEMANTIC ROLES
Hence, the following are some of the possible thematic roles served by
arguments in a sentence:
 Agent (actor): the animate initiator, causer, doer, or instigator of an
action who acts by will or volition, takes responsibility for the action,
and is its direct cause: is related to the subject of the sentence; that is,
sth that is said about the subject or may or may not do an action.
E.g.,1/'She is a happy girl‘.
2/'She became a good friend of mine'
 Force (author): the inanimate (lifeless) cause of an action, which does
not act by will or volition;
 Instrument (means): the means by which an event is caused, or the
tool, generally inanimate, used to carry out an action; an instrument
does not act but is acted upon; (Agent, Force and Instrument
together could be considered “Cause”.)
 8. THEMATIC/ SEMANTIC ROLES
 Experiencer (dative or affected): the animate being
affected inwardly by a state or action;
 Source: the place-from-which or person-from-whom
an action emanates;
 Goal (recipient): the place-to-which or person-to-
whom an action is directed, including indirect
objects and directional adverbs;
 Path: the path taken in moving from one place to
another in the course of an action;
 Location (place also temporal): the place-at/in-
which or the time-at-which an action occurs.
 This resembles the term setting in literature.
 8. THEMATIC/ SEMANTIC ROLES
 Possessor: the possessor of a thing, really a special kind of locative, since
the thing and the possessor must match. There are two kinds of
possession; depending on whether the possessor and the thing possessed
are inherently connected, such as Judy’s head (inalienable possession) or
not, such as Judy’s car (alienable possession);
 Beneficiary: the person or thing for which an action is performed or the
person who derives something from the actions of another;
 Benefactive Subject (BO): It resembles the ‘dative’ or ‘IO’ (same
position in the sentence). It can also be replaced by a prepositional
phrase, but usually with the preposition for not to.
 E.g., 1/'Her father bought her a car‘
 2/'Fetch me the paper, will you?'
 Factitive (result or effected): the object resulting from an action or state,
having no prior existence but coming about by feature of the action or state
 8. THEMATIC/ SEMANTIC ROLES
 Patient (affected, object(ive), or theme): the person or
thing affected by an action, or the entity undergoing a
change;
 Theme: the person or thing which undergoes an action,
or that which is transferred or moved by an event but
otherwise unchanged;
 Neutral (theme): the person or thing which is not
changed or even acted upon, but simply present at an
action:
 Range (extent): the specification or limitation of an
action, and
 Role: a person playing a role or part in an action or state.
 Differences between Patient, Theme, Neutral, and
Factitive:

Jane broke the vase. (Patient)

Jane moved the vase. (Theme)
Jane saw the vase. (Neutral)
Jane made a vase. (Factitive)
 A Patient is changed in some way by the action, while
a theme is affected by the action, often by changing
location, but is itself unchanged.
 A Neutral is present at the event but does not
undergo an action.
 A Factitive comes about by feature of the action itself.
 The Expression of Thematic Roles
AGENT
 The logger felled the tree.
 The tree was felled by the logger.
FORCE
 The wind felled the tree.
 The tree was felled by the wind.
 The logger felled the tree with a single blow.
INSTRUMENT
 The tree was felled with an axe.
 The sweater was knitted by hand.
 He used an axe to fell the tree.
 Liquor killed him.
 His insights impressed us.
 He impressed us with his insights.
 The Expression of Thematic Roles
EXPERIENCER
 Marianne is lonely/feels lonely/is suffering.
 I like the book.
 The news pleases me. The news enraged me.
 The news is pleasing to me.
SOURCE
 I got the book from the library.
 I got some money out of the bank.
 The child took the book off the shelf.
 I borrowed the book from my teacher.
 His leaving pleases me (‘is a source of pleasure to’).
 The sun gives off heat.
 A caterpillar turns into a butterfly.
 The plane left (from) Boston
 The Expression of Thematic Roles
GOAL
 I sent a card to my grandmother.
 I sent my grandmother a card.
 My grandmother was sent a card.
 My grandmother got a card from me.
 She reached the coast.
 I sent the package to Europe.
 A new idea came to me.
 We hung the picture on the wall.
 Susy jumped onto the step.
 I sent the child home.
 I walked upstairs.
 She did it {for love, to gain attention}.
 The Expression of Thematic Roles
PATH
 Hannibal traveled over the mountains.
 We walked along the railroad tracks.
 The package came via London.
LOCATION
 The dog is in the house/on the chair/under the table/behind the
couch.
 I will return on Tuesday/at noon.
 There are many people in the room.
 The room has many people in it.
 That bottle contains alcohol.
 People filled the room.
 Vancouver is a rainy city.
 The Expression of Thematic Roles
POSSESSOR
Alienable: He has/owns/possesses a dog.
 The dog belongs to him. The dog is his.
 The jewels are in his possession.
 That dog of his is a nuisance.
 His dog is a nuisance.
 The man with the dog/who has the dog…
Inalienable: She has/ owns/ possesses brown hair.
 The brown hair belongs to her.
 The brown hair is hers.
 The brown hair is in her possession.
 The Expression of Thematic Roles
BENEFACTIVE
 Jack answered the phone for José.
 The store special-ordered the book for me.
 The waitress reserved a place for our party.
FACTITIVE: They formed a circle.
 Wren designed St. Paul’s.
 The coach turned into a pumpkin.
 He baked a cake.
PATIENT:
 I baked the chicken.
 The chicken was baked by me.
 The chicken baked in the oven.
 The Expression of Thematic Roles
THEME
 I put the letter on the table.
 The letter flew out of the window
 We read the letter.
NEUTRAL
 The house costs a lot.
 The table measures three feet by three feet.
 Richard saw a tree on the horizon.
RANGE
 The dress costs a hundred dollars.
 The man weighs 80 kilograms. We drove ten miles.
 He hummed a silly tune. He lived out his life happily.
ROLE
 Hilda is the principal of the school.
 We made Lise treasurer of the club.
 Dual Thematic Roles
 Often an argument may have more than one thematic
role. Dual roles occur with arguments of certain classes of
verbs. First, the animate subject of many verbs of motion,
such as run, walk, swim, wade, climb, stand up, roll over,
or travel, is both Agent and Theme:
= John sat down. (John = Agent and Theme)
 The subject both performs an intentional action (sitting)
and is acted upon; that is, changes location (from standing
to sitting). However, some verbs of motion, such as fall,
slip, slide, or sink, may be ambiguous in respect to
thematic role:
= Jack {fell down, slipped over the edge, slid down the slope}.
 Dual Thematic Roles
 They presented an award to Sam.
 They = Agent and Source, Sam=Goal, award =
Theme
 They presented Sam with an award.
 They = Agent and Source, Sam = Theme and
Goal, award = Neutral
 Classroom Activity

Find Dual Thematic Roles in the Following Sentences

1. They presented an award to Sam.
Agent and Source: they
Goal: Sam
Theme: award
2. They presented Sam with an award.
Agent and Source: they
Theme and Goal: Sam
Neutral: an award
3. She sprayed paint on the wall.
Agent: she
Patient: paint
Location: the wall
4. She sprayed the wall with paint.
Agent: she
Patient and location: the wall
Theme: paint
 In Conclusion:
Thematic relations were introduced in generative
grammar during the mid-1960s and early 1970s as
a way of classifying the arguments of natural
language predicates into a closed set of participant
types which were thought to have a special status
in grammar.
A list of the most popular roles and the properties
usually associated with them include:
the Agent --- A participant which the meaning of
the verb specifies as doing or causing something,
possibly intentionally,
 Cont’d---
• The Patient --- A participant which the verb characterizes as
having something happen to it, and as being affected by
what happens to it,
• the Experiencer --- A participant who is characterized as
aware of something,
• the Theme --- A participant which is characterized as
changing its position or condition, or as being in a state or
position,
• the Location --- The thematic role associated with the NP
expressing the location in a sentence with a verb of location,
• the Source --- Object from which motion proceeds,
• the Goal --- Object to which motion proceeds and others.