SYNTAX

What is the difference

between grammar and syntax?
 Grammar is broader than syntax. Syntax is the part of grammar.
The part of grammar dealing with words, phrases, clauses and sentences is known as Syntax.

In Linguistics, grammar is the set of structural rules governing the composition of clauses, phrases, and words in any
language.

Grammar refers also to the study of such rules, and this field includes phonology, morphology and syntax, often
complemented by phonetics, semantics and pragmatics.
 Approaches …

There are a number of theoretical approaches to the discipline of syntax. One school, founded in the works of
Derek Bickerton, sees syntax as a branch of biology, since it conceives of syntax as the study of linguistic
knowledge as embodied in the human mind.

Other linguists (e.g., Gerald Gazdar) take a more Platonistic view, since they regard syntax to be the study of an
abstract formal system. Yet others (e.g., Joseph Greenberg) consider syntax as a device to reach broad
generalizations across languages.

Syntacticians have attempted to explain the causes of word-order variation within individual languages and cross-
linguistically. Much of such work has been done within frameworks of generative grammar which assumes that the
core of syntax depends on a genetic structure which is common to all mankind.
Syntax is the part of linguistics that studies sentence structure:
Word order:

I want these books.

Want these I books.

He wants this book.

He want this book.

I want these books

I want this books.
Syntax is the study of how languages express relationships between words.

Every language in the world has a certain order of words.

One way of expressing relationships between words is to put the words in a consistent order, to
tell us who did what to whom.

For example, we can say the subject (S) first, then the verb (V), then the object (O).

S V O
subject verb object

English uses this word order, as do many other languages like Nahuatl from Mexico, Portuguese,
and Malagasy from Madagascar.

Over 85% of languages usually place the subject first, either in the sequence SVO or the sequence SOV. The
other possible sequences are VSO, VOS, OVS, and OSV, the last three of which are rare.
 subjec
object verb
t

The word order doesn’t have to go subject, verb, object — any word order will work as long as it's
consistent within a given language.
For example, in Hindi, the typical order is subject, object, verb.
This is also very common across languages, such as Czech, Tibetan, and Korean.

verb subject object

And in Irish, the typical order is verb, subject, object.

This order is rarer, but it's also found in Hawaiian, Māori, and Chatino, another language of
Mexico.
Every sentence we read or say follows the rules of grammar and syntax. Even when we use
informal or colloquial speech, we are following a syntactical pattern that best conveys the meaning
of the sentence to our peers. Here are some examples of grammar and syntax rules in action.

Tom went to the store.

•Grammar elements: The third-person singular noun (Tom) agrees with the past-tense verb (went).
The preposition (to) connects the action to a definite article (the) and another noun (store).

•Syntax elements: The simple sentence consists of one independent subject. It includes one
subject (Tom) and one predicate (went to the store), which includes one direct object (the store).
After winning the game, Charlotte and her friends
celebrated in the locker room.
•Grammar elements:
The subordinating conjunction (after) modifies the progressive verb (winning), which comes before
an article (the) and a noun (game).
The conjunction (and) connects the third person singular noun (Charlotte) with a possessive
pronoun (her) and a plural noun (friends).
The past-tense verb (celebrated) connects with the preposition (in), the article (the), the adjective
(locker) and the noun (room).

•Syntax elements:
A complex sentence is formed by a dependent clause (after winning the game) combined with an
independent clause (Charlotte and her friends celebrated in the locker room).
The subject (Charlotte and her friends) is part of both clauses.
After winning the game, Charlotte and her friends
celebrated in the locker room.

Note that in the given example, you can change the order of the clauses to:

Charlotte and her friends celebrated in the locker room

after winning the game.

The above sentence still follows grammar and syntax rules. It makes sense and conveys the
same meaning as the original example. But, syntax allows us to be more creative with
sentences style with a range of structures.
Syntax is the arrangement of words to form a sentence.
We can compose sentences in a variety of ways.
How we arrange our sentences can affect how they're interpreted.
For example,

"The boy ran hurriedly," reads differently than,

"Hurriedly, the boy ran."

The difference may be slight, but the syntax in each sentence conveys a different meaning and,
perhaps, a different mental image.
 Let's explore various syntax in literature examples.

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

A solemn consideration, when I enter a great city by night,

that every one of those darkly clustered houses encloses its own
secret; that every room in every one of them encloses its own secret;
that every beating heart in the hundreds of thousands of breasts there,
is, in some of its imaginings, a secret to the heart nearest it!

This is a great example of a writer who enjoyed complex syntax. Dickens

often wrote lengthy sentences, separated by multiple commas and/or
semicolons; you noticed that this entire passage is just a single sentence.
He also liked to repeat patterns, also known as anaphora. He used "that
every" to start three phrases in this one short excerpt /ˈeksɜːpt/.
 SYNTECTIC CATEGORIES

NOUN VERB DETERMINER Adjectives

a determiner informs us which noun we're talking about:

is it, for example, - the book, a book, any book, all books, some books?

ADVERBS CONJUNCTIONS PREPOSITIONS

What Is a Determiner?

A determiner is a word placed in front of a noun

to specify quantity (e.g., "one dog," "many dogs") or
to clarify what the noun refers to (e.g., "my dog," "that dog, "the dog").

All determiners can be classified as one of the following:

• An Article (a/an, the)
•A Demonstrative (this, that, these, those)
•A Possessive (my, your, his, her, its, our, their)
•A Quantifier (many, much, more, most, some)
THE PARTS OF SPEECH
The words of every language fall into classes, which are called parts
of speech. Each part of speech has its own characteristics. The parts of speech
differ from each other in:
1) meaning
2) form
3) function
All words in the English language may be divided into 3 main groups:
1) notional words
2) functional words
3) independent element.
Notional words (значущі частини мови) have distinct lexical meaning and
perform independent syntactic functions in the sentence, serving as primary
(головні) or secondary parts of the sentence.

NOTIONAL WORDS
1. VERB go, sit, play…
2. NOUN man, girl, table…
3. ADJECTIVE nice, brilliant, clever…
4. NUMERAL one, twenty, fifth, tenth…
5. PRONOUN I, you, my, his, somebody, this
6. ADVERB nicely, often, seldom, here, there
7. WORDS OF CATEGORY OF STATE asleep, alone, awaken, alive
Functional words (службові) differ from notional words semantically – their lexical
meaning is of more general character that that of the notional words. Structural words do
not perform any independent syntactic function in the sentence, but serve to express
various relations between the words in the sentence or to supply the meaning of the word
(“a” book/ “the” book).

FUNCTIONAL WORDS
1. ARTICLE a, the
2. PARTICLE to, too, not, also…
3. PREPOSITION in, on, with, of…
4. CONJUNCTION and, but, if, though, or …
Independent elements (незалежні) are words, which are characterized by
peculiar meaning of various kinds. They have no grammatical connection in
the sentence in which they occur. They do not perform any syntactic
function.

INDEPENDENT ELEMENTS
1. INTERJECTION Alas! Wow! Ouch! Oh!
2. MODAL WORDS indeed, probably, no doubt
3. WORDS OF AFFIRMATION and NEGATION yes, no
 Syntax trees are a neat graphing tool to chart sentence
structure and make sense of word order and how its
functioning in the world of English.

A Syntax tree or a parse tree is a tree representation of

different syntactic categories of a sentence. It helps us to
understand the syntactical structure of a sentence.
4 Sentence Types in the English Language
The English language is extraordinarily flexible when it comes to building
sentences. At the same time, all sentences in English fall into four distinct
types:
[Link] sentences. Simple sentences consist of a single, independent
clause. For example: “The girl hit the ball.”
[Link] sentences. Compound sentences consist of two or more
independent clauses joined by a coordinating conjunction. The
coordinating conjunctions are “but,” “or,” and “so.” For example: “The girl
hit the ball, and the ball flew out of the park.”
[Link] sentences. Complex sentences consist of an independent
clause and one or more dependent clauses joined by a subordinating
conjunction. Some subordinating conjunctions are “although,” “because,”
“so,” “that,” and “until.” For example: “When the girl hit the ball, the fans
cheered.”
[Link]-complex sentences. Compound-complex sentences consist of
multiple independent clauses as well as at least one dependent clause. For
 What type of sentences are the given ones?
•I don't like dogs, and my sister doesn't like cats because they
make her sneeze.
•You can write on paper, but using a computer is better as you
can easily correct your mistakes.
•A tree fell onto the school roof in a storm, but none of the
students was injured, although many of them were in
classrooms at the top of the building.
•Compound-complex: Contains 3 or more clauses (of which at least two are independent and
one is dependent).
• I don't like dogs, and my sister doesn't like cats because they make her sneeze.
• You can write on paper, but using a computer is better as you can easily correct your
mistakes.
• A tree fell onto the school roof in a storm, but none of the students was injured, although
many of them were in classrooms at the top of the building.
 What type of sentences are the given ones?

•I don't like dogs.

•Our school basketball team lost their last game of
the season 75-68.
•The old hotel opposite the bus station in the center
of the town is probably going to be knocked down
at the end of next year.
•Simple: Contains a single, independent clause.
• I don't like dogs.
• Our school basketball team lost their last game of the
season 75-68.
• The old hotel opposite the bus station in the center of
the town is probably going to be knocked down at the
end of next year.
 What type of sentences are the given ones?

•I don't like dogs, and my sister doesn't like cats.

•You can write on paper, or you can use a
computer.
•A tree fell onto the school roof in a
storm, but none of the students was injured.
•Compound: Contains two independent clauses
that are joined by a coordinating
conjunction. (The most common coordinating
conjunctions are: but, or, and, so.
Remember: boas.)
• I don't like dogs, and my sister doesn't like
cats.
• You can write on paper, or you can use a
computer.
• A tree fell onto the school roof in a
storm, but none of the students was injured.
 What type of sentences are the given ones?

•I don't like dogs that bark at me when I go past.

•She did my homework, while her father cooked dinner.
•You can write on paper, although a computer is better if you want to
correct mistakes easily.

Note: A dependent clause standing alone without an independent

clause is called a fragment sentence
•Complex: Contains an independent clause plus one or
more dependent clauses. (A dependent clause starts with
a subordinating conjunction. Examples: that, because,
while, although, where, if.)
•I don't like dogs that bark at me when I go past.
•She did my homework, while her father cooked dinner.
•You can write on paper, although a computer is
better if you want to correct mistakes easily.
 Syntax.
It's one of the core topics in
linguistics.
Syntax is the study of how languages express relationships between words.
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