英语语言学chapter 4 syntax

Lecture Four

Syntax

I.

II.

Definition studies how words are combined to form sentences and the rules that govern the formation of sentences. (Transformational syntax to be introduced in the book.) Word-level categories syntactic category refers to a group of linguistic items which fulfill the same or similar functions in a particular language. Traditionally, category is termed as “parts of speech”.

Major lexical categories and minor lexical categories Examples of some lexical categoriesMajor lexical categoriesNoun (N) Verb (V) Adjective (A) Preposition (P) Minor lexical categories Determiner (Det) Degree word (Deg) Qualifier (Qual) Auxiliary (Aux) Conjunction (Con)

Examplesbook, boy, love, sheep run, read, play happy, tall, clear about, over, on Examples the, a, this, those quite, very, more, so often, always, seldom, almost must, should, can, might and, but, or

III. Phrase categories IV. Phrases: syntactic units that are built around a certain word category are called phrases. phrase category is determined by the word category around which the phrase is built . Types:Noun phrase (NP): the pretty girl Verb phrase (VP): often dream Adjective phrase (AP): very pessimistic Prepositional phrase (PP): in the house Adverbial phrase (ADVP): very quickly (Wen, p. 118)

Whether formed of one or more than one word, they consist of two levels: phase level and word level

Phrases that are formed of more than one word usually contain the following elements: Head(中心语), specifier(标志语) and complement(补足语) The word around which a phrase is formed is head. The words on the left side of the heads are specifiers. One the right are complements.

Phrase structure rule (PS rule) A certain word can only concur with certain other words. There must be certain grammatical mechanism that ensures the appropriate positions that specifiers, heads and complements occupy in phrase structure. Such special type of grammatical mechanism that regulates the arrangement of elements that make up a phrase is called a phrase structure rule.

Rule 1: S- NP +VP Rule 2:NP Det+ N (Pron) Rule3:Vp Be Pred VT np Vi Vlcomp

Rule 4: Aux t Rule 5 : t past pres

IV. Phrase structure rule (Combinational rules: Xp rule) Introduction: SNP VP AP PP (Det) (Adj) N (PP) … (Adv) V (NP) … (Adv) A (PP) … (Adv) P (NP) …

(Note: “ ” means “consist of”; ( ) means “can be omitted”; “…” means other complement options are available)

An NP can consist of a determiner,an N head and a PP compliment. How to read the three others? My best friend (NP) Always forget something ? Ready for a fight? Mainly about the village?

XP rule The XP rule: XP (specifier) X (complement) simlification X ¯ Theory a. XP (specifier) X ¯ b. X ¯ X (complement) It is capable of reducing the redundancies of individual phrases structure rules and may capture certain basic properties shared b

y all phrasal categories across the languages of the world .

Phrase elements– Specifier: specify the meaning of head, top level of phrase structures, syntactic category may be different depending on the category of the head. – Complements: provide information about entities and locations, a word’s complement is included in the head – A certain lexical item requires a certain type of complement.

Sentence structure The structural approach: started by Saussure . The boy kicked the ball. The words are not of the same degree of closeness to each other. The relation between the and boy is closer than that between boy and Kicked. The boy is a word group while boy kicked is not.

IC analysis_ proposed by Bloomfield Sentences are divided into their principal parts of immediate constituents, each of these is then subdivided until the ultimate constituents of the sentence are reached. The boys /shyly touched the puppy. The boys /shyly touched/ the puppy. The /boys /shyly/ touched/ the/ puppy.

adavatages and problems of IC analysis 1. it can explain the ambiguity of some sentences. A /pretty /young woman.(pretty and young) A /pretty young/ woman( very young) 2.can show different communicative values which the sentence may have. The tiger climbed the tree.

The tiger/ climbed the tree.(what climbed…?) The tiger climbed/ the tree.(what did the tiger climb?) The tiger/ climbed /the tree.(what have you got tell me?)