SYNTAX
- Definition of syntax
Based on the experts, Syntax is a
central component of human language. Language has often been characterized as a
systematic correlation between certain types of gestures and meaning. It is not
the case that every possible meaning that can be expressed is correlated with a
unique, unanalyzable gesture, be it oral or manual. Rather, each language has
stock of meaning-bearing elements and different ways of combining them to
express different meaning, and these ways of combining them are themselves
meaningful.(Robert and Valin, 2001). Syntax can thus be given the following
characterization, taken from Matthews (1982:1) the term ‘syntax’ is from the
Ancient Greek syntaxis, a verbal noun
which literally means ‘arrangement’ or ‘setting out together’. Traditionally,
it refers to the branch of grammar dealing with the ways in which words, with
or without appropriate inflections, are arranged to show connections of meaning
within the sentence. Similar to the explanation of Matthew, Robert and Van
Valin (2001) expresses the essence of itself as the following syntax: “First
and foremost, syntax deals with how sentences are constructed, and users of
human language employ a striking variety of possible arrangements of the
element in sentences”.
Syntax is the study of the principles
and processes by which sentences are constructed in particular languages.
Syntactic investigation of a given language has as its goal the construction of
a grammar that can be viewed as a device of some sort for producing the
sentences of the language under analysis.
(Chomsky, 2002)
The study of syntax is the study of how
words combine to from phrases and ultimately sentences in languages. Because it
consists of phrases that are put together in a particular way, a sentences has
a structure. The structure consists of way in which the words are organized
into phrases and the phrases are organized into larger phrases. The study of
phrases and sentences structure is sometimes called grammar. (Tserdanelis and
Wong, 2004)
The syntax of a language is the set of
properties which determine the construction of sentences in that language. If a
sentence is constructed according to those properties it is well formed or
grammatical. If a sentence is constructed
in violation of those properties it is ill-formed or ungrammatical. The
study of syntax involves uncovering those properties of language which are
involved in the construction of grammatical sentence in particular languages.
(Hawkins, 2001)
Syntax is the system of rules and categories
that allows words to be combined to the form of sentence. The data that
linguists use to study syntax consists primarily of judgments about grammaticality
of individual sentence. Roughly speaking, a sentence is considered grammatical
if speakers judge it to be a possible sentence of their language. (O’grady, at
all.,1989)
Syntax
is that part of our linguistics knowledge which concerns the structure of
sentences. Knowing a language also means being able to put words together to
form sentences to express our thoughts. (Fromkin and Rodman,1983)
From the experts’ explanation
above we can conclude that syntax is the study of internal structure of
sentences. In this case, it explains how words are arranged become phrases and
clauses for constructing sentence. It is commonly we call structure. Structure
manages how words can be combined with another for creating good sentence.
- Basic idea of syntax
1. Word
ordering and meaning
The order of words in a sentences or
phrases is connected to its literal meaning. The basic underlying word order in
an English sentence is subject-verb-object (S-V-O). (Murcia and Freeman,1999). Consider
the English sentences :
a. Joe
writes poetry
The factors determines the meaning of
sentences: (1) the selection of words plays a role in determining the literal
meaning of the sentences, (2) the orders of words play a role the literal
meaning of the sentences. (Tserdanelis and Wong, 2004). See the two examples:
a. The mat is on the cat
b. The cat is on the mat
2. Ambiguity
As we have studied before, there is factor
determining what a sentence means. Consider the following examples:
a. Can
you tell me the time?
b. We
had the president for dinner.
c. We
need more intelligent administrators.
d. Pat
shot the soldier with a telescope.
All three sentences are ambiguous-that
is, they have more than one meaning. The first sentences is ambiguous because
it can be used either as a straightforward question (“ are you able to tell me
the time?”) . we call this pragmatic ambiguity. The second sentence is ambiguous because the expression have for dinner can mean either “ host
for dinner” or “ have for dinner”. This type of ambiguity is called lexical ambiguity. The third sentence ,
this sentence also has two meaning. On one meaning, we need administrators who
are more intelligent. On the other meaning, we need a grater number of
intelligent administrators. The type of ambiguity is called structure ambiguity. (Tserdanelis and
Wong, 2004)
- Phrase Structure
a. Lexical
categories
In
English the main categories are Nouns(N), Verb(V), Adjectives(A),
Prepositions(P), and Adverbs(Adv).
b. Phrasal
categories
The phrasal categories are built up from
the lexical categories (their head) in the ways that we have already
illustrated. The phrasal categories are NP(noun phrases), VP(verb phrases),
AP(adjective phrases), PP(preposisition phrases) , AdvP(adverb phrase). (Tserdanelis
and Wong, 2004)
a. Noun
phrases is any phrase which can act as a complete subject, object, etc. in a
sentence; e.q. “The big red block”, “
Most of the three coaches”.
b. Verb
phrases is basically a verb plus its complement (s); e.g. “ gave the parcel to
the clerk”
c. Prepositional
phrases may be required (for instance, by a verb that it comes after) to contain
a particular preposition.
d. Adjective
phrases usually consist of single adjectives, but it is possible for these to
be accompanied by an indication of degree ad some number of adverb as modifier,
as in “very commonly used”.
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