Syntax
“words in a sentence are more than a
simple concatenation of items-there
are patterns and regularities that can
be discovered. Syntax studies the
organization of words into phrases
and phrases into sentences”
Language Files 7
Words vs. Sentences
• Sentences unlike words are not learned
individually. There is no dictionary of sentences.
• Why is it that we cannot use a word or
understand it if we have never come across it
before but we can understand novel sentences?
• The field of syntax addresses the properties of
sentences and phrases. We will learn that the
principles behind sentence formation are rich and
very complex.
• Two basic principles of sentence organization:
• Linear order and hierarchical
Linear Order
• Sentence organization has a general
dependency on word order:
• Mastoora glanced at Zahra’a
• If we rearrange we get either nonsense:
• *Zahra’a Mastoora at glanced
• Or a different meaning:
• Zahra’a glanced at Mastoora
Linear order…
• For example, Malagasy (spoken in
Madagascar):
• Manasa lamba amin’ny savony ny lehilahy
• Washes clothes with the soap the man
• Verb Object Subject
• In English, it would be SVO
• Linearly speaking, the syntax of Malagasy is
different to that of English
• Linearity is therefore essential to syntax
• The following examples are all sentences, but
most are unacceptable:
• 1. the cat is on the mat
• 2. the mat is on the cat
• 3.*the is cat on the mat
• 4.*mat on is the cat the mat
• 5.*the cat on is the mat
• 6.*the cat on the is mat
• 7.*the cat on the mat is
• 8.*mat the on is cat
Linear order cont…
• Linearity therefore not only determines variable
meaning, but also whether a sentence is
grammatical or not.
• In English we have an SVO (subject-verb-object)
structure.
• Linear order is however language-specific
• Some languages are VSO or SOV.
Lexical Categories
• Also referred to as syntactic categories
which are a group of words that function in
similar fashion e.g. parts of speech. For
example:
• A) I want to read a book
• B) *The want to read a book
• C) You want to read a book
• In red we have A & C forming grammatical
sentences, but not B
• A & C seem to share a lexical category
Russian Linearity
Agreement
• Lexical categories are subject to
‘agreement’
• Knowing that the lexical categories of nouns
can occur before a verb or after it is not
enough. For example:
• A) Joe eats pizza on Fridays
• B)*Joe eat pizza on Fridays
• In English this is Subject-verb agreement ‘s’.
Some languages require gender agreement
between the adj. and the noun for instance
Hierarchical Structure
• Sentences are more complex than simple linearity
• Sentences have internal hierarchical structures
• These structures form into what we call constituents
• Constituents can be large (the whole sentence is one
constituent) or small (individual words)
• How constituents are related tells us about
constituent structure
An example in case
• 1. We need more intelligent administrators
• Ambiguous sentence
• a. we need administrators that are more intelligent
• b. we need a greater number of intelligent
administrators
• Sentences like 1 are defined as having structurally
ambiguity
• The meaning of the sentence depends on how the
words are put together/syntactically structured
• For example…
Structural ambiguity
• In (i) more is grouped with intelligent
• In (ii) intelligent is grouped with
administrator
• So to capture this, we bracket the words
that form a phrase:
• i. Meaning one: [more intelligent]
administrators
• ii. Meaning two: more [intelligent
administrators]
Other examples…
• 2. Obama shot the soldier with the gun
• What two meanings can you extract from
this sentence?
• i) Obama shot the soldier holding a gun
• ii) Obama shot the soldier using a gun
• How would we bracket this?
Constituents= Hierarchy
• When we bracket phrases we refer to them as
constituents
• The manner by which constituents relate
informs us about the hierarchical structure of
constituents in a sentence
• This hierarchy is represented through
syntactic tree diagrams
• How would we break down the constituents of
the following ambiguous sentence:
• That is a large man’s hat
