English Syntax
Faculty of Human Sciences
Bachelor of English (07BAEN)
English Syntax (ESY 611S)
Lecturer: Dr Niklaas Fredericks
1st Semester 2020
Assignment 3
Due
Date: 1 July 2020
Joel D.T
Kayuhwa
200965263
Question 1
Hana (2011), defines “syntax as the part of linguistics that
studies language structure”, mention two shortcomings of such a definition?
1) Hana’s definition of syntax as the part of
linguistics that studies language structure is undoubtedly much more broader
allowing one to think that the study of syntax falls exclusively under language
structure more so that language structure and syntax can be used
interchangeably.
2)
Language structures can be defined by grammatical function and or word
order. English is an analytical language yet still an isolating one. Isolating when it comes to grammatical concepts (inflections), but it may use
multiple morphemes for derivations, such as the ‘-er’ in “baker”, the ‘re-‘ in “replay”. This means that the definition for syntax
includes a slight deviation into morphology creating a draw back.
Question 2
According to an online dictionary:
phonetics is the science or study of speech sounds
and their production, transmission, and reception, and their analysis,
classification, and transcription. On the other hand: syntax is the study of sentence structure, namely,
word order, agreement between words, hierarchical structure – what modifies what etc.
The two sentences below both have the word
“died” in them.
1. I went
home and died after the party.
2. Her father died last week.
The phonetic (auditory-transcribed) part
of this sentence equates two identical words. However, they play different
roles in conveying message within the contextual frame of reference. In
sentence (1) and (2) they are both verbs. However, orthographic inspection
produces a mental phonetic image creating an alternative meaning in (1) other than
the one implied in (2). The one implied in (2) is the general meaning, but in
(1) the term died is used to create a hyperbole in prose writing. Syntax is not about meaning! Sentences can
have no sense and still be grammatically correct: Colorless green ideas sleep furiously. – nonsense, but
grammatically correct. Phonetically, they are viable in prose writing for example or for the
sake of scientific study and to compare and contrast as outlined in this
question with verbal expression.
Question 3
Morphology is the facet which deals with the internal
relations of words. However, languages differ in the extent to which they
depend on the morphological structure and furthermore, it is not clear whether
morphology is a straightforward element of linguistic assembly or whether it
develops from methodical consistencies between the form and meaning of the
word. Words are intricate symbols that can be decomposed into separate
components, called morphemes. The external relations of words in syntax between words are objective
relations which exist in the nature of the words. These relations reflect the objective connection between subjects
or subjects and occasions. The association between objects or occasions differ, thus, the external meaning among the words is various and
distinguished. Different relations such as, quantitative, time, place,
directional, reason, purpose, result, fully, gender-typed and other type of meaning
relations exist between subjects and occasions in sentences. The meanings are expressed by words in relation to subject and occasion
outlining the internal (semantic and objective) individual meaning of a words
and external syntactic meaning in relations to the sentence making it more
subjective when viewed syntactically.
Outlined below are four examples.
1)
The actions by the administration came too late.
2)
The tempest caused the destruction of the townships.
3)
Joel's
neighbour always knows the answer.
4)
That novelist has modernised postmodernism.
In example (1) and (2) above, the words actions and destruction are
preceded by the article ‘the’ and are followed by a phrase starting with a preposition. It can
be pluralised with an ‘-s,’ and occur in sentences with verbs (came and caused). Their
functions in the sentence is nouns rather than verbs: in
(1), action is part of the subject, and in
(2), destruction is part of the object. Apart from the plural inflection of ‘-s,’ other morphological characteristics of nouns are shown in (3) and
(4) through possessive inflected ‘-'s’ (or
genitive case) appears also only on nouns, e.g. Joel in (3),
and the affixes such as ‘-er’ and ‘-ism,’ for example on the words novel ‘-ist’ and postmodern-ism in
(4), are also typical for nouns. Syntactic reasons for calling
nouns nouns are that nouns are often preceded by ‘the’, as in (1),
(2), and (3), or that, as in (4); and that if followed by another noun,
there has to be a preposition, such as by in (1) and of in
(2), connecting them. The clear distinction is the internal relations that morphology allows
that is complemented by syntactic knowledge. Syntactical
relation is the mutual connection of elements in syntactical units, for
instance, it serves expressing the connections between the words, forms the
syntactical structure of sentence and word combinations and creates the
appropriate condition for realisation of the word’s lexical meaning.
Question 4
The difference between syntax and
semantics is a relationship-based difference. Syntax deals with the study of
how words are placed in a sentence, as well as, erection and arrangement of
phrases, clauses and sentences. Semantics deals with the study of meaning at
two openly basic explicit levels: namely, the word level and sentence level.
1. In linguistics, syntax is the study of linguistic
structures of how each and every language item interconnects and correlates
grammatically at the sentence level through sets of fixed rules.
2.
The study of syntax includes and cannot be deemed complete and successful,
unless that fixed structure has meaning, is understood, makes sense to those
who know how to handle the ‘structured’ sentence. It is shared more exclusively
by those who speak, listen, write and read well-formed sentences in a given
language.
Semantics, however, exists in a ‘chain’ and ‘choice,’ that is
structural or lexical, horizontally or vertically.
1)
The chain refers to a particular form or
part of speech (noun, adjective, preposition, verb, etc.); choice refers to the
selection between, for example, “child or kid.”
2)
Semantics also deals with “shades”
of meaning (polysemy) interpretations, conjectures, implications, compositional
meaning, figures of speech such as metaphors and similes, plus semantic
conditions of truth which are all culture-bound.
Question 5
A lexical category is a syntactic category for elements
that are part of the lexicon of a language. These elements are at the word
level. These categories are called lexical
because they carry meaning (have synonyms and antonyms) and they are the heads
of phrases. The categories are nouns, verbs,
adjectives, adverbs, prepositions.
Question 6
Determine
the lexical category of each of the underlined words in the sentences
below. Use the morphological, semantic and syntactic criteria
to provide evidence for your answers.
1. His second book came out
this year.
Lexical Category: Adjective
Morphological Criteria: No ‘-ly’ in most cases.
Semantic Criteria: Modifies the noun. Showing what
happened.
Syntactic Criteria: Describes the qualities of noun.
1. The Beautiful woman in
the purple dress
Lexical Category: Adjective
Morphological Criteria: Typically it does not have
‘-ly’
Semantic Criteria: It modifies a noun-woman.
Syntactic Criteria: Describes qualities typical of
nouns, the woman is beautiful.
2. Messi squeezed the ball between the goalkeepers
legs into the net.
Lexical Category: Noun
Morphological Criteria: It contains the possessive (genitive) ‘-s’
Semantic Criteria: It is a person.
Goalkeeper is a player in soccer or field
hockey whose special role is to stop the ball from entering the goal
Syntactic Criteria: It is preceded by a determiner i.e. article ‘the’.
Question 7
Immediate constituent analysis or IC
analysis is a sentence analysis in linguistics that was first mentioned by
Leonard Bloomfield in 1933. Bloomfield did not separate sentences into
“subject” and “predicate”, but rather used “actor” and “action,” because he did
not yet coin the terminologies for phrasal categories. IC analysis cuts
sentences into smaller units or components using a binary cutting linguistic
procedure. A constituent is any unit of
internal syntactic structure. It is likened unto a group of
words functioning as a unit. Syntactically the unit is combined with other
syntactic units to form a construction. Each constituent can be classified on
the notion of its arrangement of internal constituent in itself and within
relation to the grammatical function with other constituents. Clarity suffices
that a constituent is a part or an element of a construction.
This means that a sentence is made up of levels. Depending from which
side you start, the first level is a word, that makes up a phrase, a phrase
that makes up a clause, a clause that makes up a sentence. Vice versa, a
sentence consists of clauses, and clauses consists of phrases and phrases
consists of words. Each level co-occurs within a hierarchy either from the
bottom up (word > phrase > clause > sentence) or from the top to the
individual word (sentence > clause > phrase > word). IC
analysis is that system of grammatical analysis that breakup sentences into
sequential layers, or constituents until in the final layer, and every
constituent consists of only a word or meaningful part of a word.
Syntactic analysis is also known as
parsing. Traditionally parsing is what happens when a student takes a sentence
and assigns the words within the clauses and phrases, one by one, to a part of
speech, specifies its grammatical categories, and lists the grammatical
relations between words (identifying subject and various types of object for a
verb, specifying the word with which some contrasting word agrees, etc.). Parsing
is the operation that applies a series of language-particular principle, phrase
structure rules like NP + VP = S and V + NP ( + NP ) = VP, to (a representation
of) a sentence, such that all the grammatical descriptions for that sentence
and no other like it. The licencing of the phrase structure rule NP + VP = S
grouped as a constituent either known to be or suspected of being an NP along
with an immediately following constituent know to be or suspected of being a
VP, into a single constituent of type S is then an acceptable constituent
structure that is headed by S and can be constructed entirely by a sequence of
such groupings.
Steps to Immediate Constituent Analysis
Phrasal Categories: (NP) = Noun Phrase
(VP)
= Verb Phrase
(PP)
= Prepositional Phrase
(AP)
= Adjective Phrase
(AdvP)
= Adverb Phrase
N = Noun, V = Verb, P = Preposition, Adj =
Adjective, Adv = Adverb, Det = Determiner,
Art = Article
Step 1: Sentence
= NP + VP
A single sentence is made up of a NP (subject) and a VP predicate
phrase. This predicate phrase which stands apart from a
compulsory verbal group may optionally have one or more noun phrase(s),
preposition phrase(s) and adverbial and adjective phrases. This has to be identified as the first
step. An important fact that should be clarified is how constitute and constituent are relative terms. For example, “poor
John” is a constitute when viewed in relation to “poor” and “John”, but it is a
constituent when viewed in relation to the sentence as a whole.
Step 2: NP
= (Art) (Adj) N (PP)
NP
= Det (N)
This step requires further binary cutting
depending on how many words constitute the NP constituent. The NP constitutes
of a compulsory determiner that precedes the noun, these are the/a and this/that/these/those. An optional pre-modifying adjective and
an optional post-modifying Prepositional Phrase. A noun constitutes its part
under the lexical category as opposed to grammatical or functional categories
to which determiners belong. A noun conveys meaning and it is the head of the
NP. The lexical category also includes an optional adjective which modifies the
noun in addition to its semantical meaning and the PP constitutes its belonging
as part lexical and part grammatical or functional. The syntactical analysis
should further reveal what words combine with the noun or the morphological
form in which it appears to ascertain a functional syntactically sound
sentence.
Step 3: VP
= V (NP) (PP) Where NP
= (Art) (Adj) N (PP)
The VP also requires similar analysis of
cutting into its singular word constituents. The VP constitutes of a verb and
an optional NP and optional PP. The verb belongs to the lexical category and it
is the head of the VP. The optional NP and PP form part of the lexical category
as well. The morphological form of the verb is an affixation showing tense or
third person singular. Verbs are action words or imply a state, event or
emotion. Syntactically they can be preceded by an auxiliary and then followed
by a noun. Its semantic meaning contributes to the optional NP and PP to
outline its syntactic syntax criteria or word agreement and order.
Step 4: PP
= P NP
Where
NP = (Art) (Adj) N (PP)
The PP is followed by a compulsory NP
which can be syntactically analysed using Step 2 above. Prepositions often
express place or time (at, in), direction (to, from) and relation (of, about).
They do not vary in form and appear before a noun in a sentence. Some
prepositions are used on their own and allows them to act like adverbs (up) or
verb (upped), gaining them a part of the lexical category. Some prepositions
convey very little lexical meaning and are mainly used as grammatically. The
syntactic analysis is therefore achieved using the correct understanding of PP
and consequently the words that constitute the PP are analysed for syntactic
coherence.
Step 5: AP
= AdjP (Adj) (AdvP)
Morphologically
an adjective
modifies a noun and semantically the quality it describes will be
those appropriate to a noun, e.g. nationality (Namibian), size (small, large), colour (green, blue), or character trait (happy,
fortunate, grateful). Falls under lexical category. The head
adjective can be followed by an optional adjective and adverb phrase.
Semantically analysing this phrase, most adjectives do not end with ‘-ly’. Each
word level analysis constitutes IC analysis of the AP being syntactically
analysed to confirm syntactic functioning of the phrase and latter clause
and/or sentence.
Step 6: AdvP
= (Int) Adv
Syntactically adverbs typically modify actions (verbs), adjectives and other adverbs.
Semantically they will then provide information typical of those,
e.g. manner (stupidly, fast), or duration (often), or speaker attitude (gratifyingly). Falls under the lexically category. Morphologically
adverbs usually end in ‘-ly’ with the exception of fast and now, which is
derived from adjectives. Syntactic analysis of the AdvP and at word level is
done accordingly.
The IC analysis of a sentence can be represented as a labelled bracketing of the sentence in which matched brackets enclose a
constituent sub-part of the sentence and label on
these brackets specifies the grammatical category of the constituent. In conclusion a large number of the tree structures actively-hired to denote the syntactic structure of sentences are parts of
some procedure of IC Analysis.
Question 8
a) Real Madrid move for Sancho
S = NP +
VP
Sentence =
Noun Phrase + Verb Phrase
Noun
Phrase = N
NP = N
= Real Madrid
Verb
Phrase = V (NP) (PP)
VP = V (PP)
= move for Sancho
V = Verb
= move
Prepositional Phrase = P (NP)
Preposition = P
P = for
Noun
Phrase = Noun
NP = N
= Sancho
Real Madrid move
P N
for Sancho
b) The move to stop the extension of John’s
contract
S = NP +
VP
Noun
Phrase = (Det) N
NP = The move
Verb
Phrase = (inf) V (NP)
= to stop the extension
of John’s contract
NP = Det (N) (PP)
= the extension of John’s
contract
PP = P (NP)
= of John’s contract
NP = Nm (N)
= John’s contract
The move
to stop the
extension of John’s contract
Comments
Post a Comment