Constituent part of a sentence that can be work together

Substitution replace a group of words by another can be pronoun……

Ex, the customer in the corner will order the drinks before the meal = he will order it later
Disaplecement to move a group of words to different parts of the sentences but it still work grammatically
Ex, john ate potatoes in the kitchen = in the kitchen, john ate potatoes
Q.formation to prove that ascertains groups of words are constituents
Ex, who have you invited to the party = john= so john is constituent
Ellipsis when a part of sentence is left out ’deleted’, but the meaning it still clear
Ex, we are all trying to forget her = as if we could, we could means ‘we could forget her’ VP
Clefting emphasizes a part of a sentence by restructuring it
Ex, john drove your car to work today = clefted= it was your car that john drove to work today, your car = new info/ john drove to
work = old info
Pseudo clefting a type of clefting that uses ‘what’ or ‘the thing that ± was/is… to emphasize information
Ex, she needed someone to talk to = what she needed was some one to talk to= NP
Ex, they will force them underground= what they will do so is force them…..VP/ will=will do is
Coordination link two equal parts of sentences using and/but, only constituents can be coordinated
Ex, the customer in the corner will order the drinks and the desert before the meal = the drinks and desert are coordinated
Adjunction an optional; part of the sentence, it adds extra information like , time, place but sentence still makes sense without it
Complement is required by the verb, without it the sentence would be incomplete or ungrammatical
Ex, order the drinks = the drinks is required ‘complement’
Core VP (Verb Phrase): The essential verb phrase containing the main verb and its necessary arguments (such as the subject,
object, or complement). Example: "eat dinner", where "eat" is the verb and "dinner" is the object.
Extended VP: A more complex VP that includes additional elements like modifiers, adverbs, and adjuncts, providing extra details.
Example: "eat dinner quickly at the restaurant", where "quickly" (adverb) and "at the restaurant" (prepositional phrase)
Augmented VP is a VP that has been expended with adjuncts and modifiers
Ex, she was playing tennis in the park last week= in the tree diagram, the VP would have the main verb ‘playing’ with complement
‘tennis’ and adjuncts like ‘in the park’ and ‘last week’ attached under V
Specifier is a word that modifiers a head noun or verb, helping refine its meaning , Ex, ‘the big house’ ‘the’ is the specifier of the NP
Here are short definitions with examples for each of the syntactic terms you mentioned:
Topicalization is a syntactic process in which a word or phrase is moved to the front of the sentence to give it emphasis or make it the topic of
discussion.Ex:"That book, I have already read. Here, "That book" is moved to the front instead of saying "I have already read that book." The speaker
wants to emphasize that book as the main topic. The meaning stays the same, but the focus shifts to the object.
The head is the central word of a phrase that determines the grammatical category (noun phrase, verb phrase, etc.) and the function of the whole
phrase. Ex:In "the big red car", the head is "car" "Car" is a noun, so the whole group is a noun phrase (NP). Words like "the," "big," and "red" are
modifiers, but they depend on "car." Without "car," the phrase has no clear meaning.
A complementizer is a word that introduces a complement clause — usually “that,” “if,” or “whether” — linking a subordinate clause to the main
clause.Ex:"I think that she is honest."Here, "that" is the complementizer. It introduces the clause "she is honest" and connects it to the main clause "I
think." Without "that," the sentence can still work in casual speech, but in syntax, it shows the connection between clauses.
Inflection refers to the grammatical features (like tense, agreement, number, mood) that are added to verbs. In syntax, it is often represented as its own
node (I or T) in the sentence structure.Ex:"She walks home. The verb "walks" is inflected with -s to show present tense and 3rd person singular. That
inflection comes from the tense/agreement feature in the structure even though we don’t see the "INFL" word in the sentence, it exists in the syntactic
tree.
Head Hypothesis. every phrase must have a head ,the word that determines its category and structure. The phrase "projects" from this head.Ex: In the
phrase "eat an apple", "eat" is the head of the verb phrase.Because the head is a verb, the entire group is a verb phrase (VP). The rest (like “an apple”)
depends on what the head requires. Without the verb, the phrase loses its structure and meaning.
The binarity hypothesis claims that every branching in a syntactic tree should be binary, meaning each node splits into exactly two parts (never three or
more).Ex: In "Cats sleep", the sentence (S) splits into two main parts: NP (Cats) and VP (sleep).This binary structure helps keep the tree consistent and
easier to analyze. Even more complex sentences are built by combining binary steps.
Projection Hypothesis: This hypothesis says that the features of a lexical item (like a noun or verb) are passed up through the phrase from the word to
the phrase to the whole sentence. The phrase “projects” from the head.
Ex:With the verb "give", we say "She gave him a gift."Give" needs two objects (a person and a thing), so in syntax, its argument structure (what it
requires) is projected up to the full verb phrase. If you remove one object, like "She gave a gift", the meaning changes or feels incomplete showing the
verb’s features influence the whole structure.