Tools of Syntactic Analysis, by Dr. Shadia Yousef Banjar

Tools of Syntactic Analysis

LANE 334 -EA: Syntax

2011 – Term 1

By:

Dr. Shadia Y. Banjar

http://SBANJAR.kau.edu.sa/

http://wwwdrshadiabanjar.blogspot.com

Tools of Syntactic Analysis

Dr. Shadia Yousef Banjar 1

LANGUAGE


SPOKEN WRITTEN

We are going to

deal with written

Sentences.

PHONOLOGY

MORPHOLOGY

SYNTAX

SEMANTICS

LEVELS OF LINGUISTIC ANALYSIS


SEMANTICS

PRAGMATICS

Phonology looks at and describes the sound system

of a language.

Morphology looks at the way words are formed .

Syntax describes the way words fit together to form

sentences or utterances.

Semantics study meaning.


Semantics study meaning.

Pragmatics study usage.

Syntax

• Syntax: is the branch of

linguistics deals with sentence

structure.

• In order to study the structure of • In order to study the structure of

sentences, we have to know the

grammatical rules governing the

way words are combined to form

‘well-formed’ sentences.Dr. Shadia Yousef Banjar 5

1. I shot the sheriff.

2. *the shot sheriff I.

a ‘well-formed’

sentence

Native

speakerXXXXXXX

√√√√√√√


2. *the shot sheriff I.an ‘ill-formed’

sentence

Native

speaker

S(consist of)

(sentence)

word + word + word + …….

word order

rules


rules

phrase structure rules

To understand the language in terms of syntactic rules, we

have to know what are the SYNTACTIC CATEGORIES!

A syntactic category is either a phrasal category, such as

noun phrase or verb phrase, which can be decomposed into

smaller syntactic categories, or a lexical category, such as

noun or verb, which cannot be further decomposed.

SYNTACTIC CATEGORIES


noun or verb, which cannot be further decomposed.

The three criteria used in defining syntactic categories are:

1. The type of meaning it expresses.

2. The type of affixes it takes.

3. The structure in which it occurs.

A family of expressions that can substitute for one another without loss of grammaticality is called a syntactic category.

1. The cat chases the mouse.

2. The dog chases the mouse2. The dog chases the mouse

3. The policeman chases the mouse.

4. The mother mouse chases the mouse.

If words and phrases could not be assigned to a small group of categories, it would be very hard to learn or use a language.


– In the given examples: 1-4,

– every word is a member of a category.

– a word’s category type determines the

kind of phrase it can form.

– a phrase is a word or string of words that functions as a unit in a sentence,

built around a head.built around a head.

– Every language has specific phrase

structure rules determining how phrasescan be combined to form sentences.


WORD

CATEGORIES

WORD CATEGORIES


FUNCTIONAL

WORD

CATEGORIES

LEXICAL

WORD

CATEGORIES

�Lexical word categories are:

� Words that have some sort of inherent meaning

are called lexical words (or content words).

� Categories pertaining to such words are called

lexical categories e.g. NOUN, VERB, ADJECTIVE.

Open-class in the sense that new words can be

LEXICAL WORD CATEGORIES


�Open-class in the sense that new words can be

added, and thus have a large number of class

members.

Functional word categories are:

� Words that don’t have (an easily detectable) inherent

meaning are called functional words because such words

perform some function in the sentence.

�Categories belong to such words are called FUNCTIONAL

CATEGORIES e.g. DETERMINER, CONJUNCTION

Functional word categories


CATEGORIES e.g. DETERMINER, CONJUNCTION

� Functional word categories tend to be CLOSED-CLASS

(new words may not be added) and have a small number of

class members.

Morphological properties

� it can take a plural -s morpheme;

Exceptions: children, deer, mice, fish, . . .

�it can be modified by a possessive (apostrophe: ’s)

� it contains morphemes like the following: -ity, -ness,

NOUN


� it contains morphemes like the following: -ity, -ness,

-action, -er, -ion, -ment, -ance, -hood.

These are all NOUN- OR NOMINAL SUFFIXES e.g

friendliness, writer, government, neighborhood.

Syntactic properties of the class of NOUN

• preceded by articles like: the, demonstrative

pronouns like: this, that, these, those and

numerals like: one, two, three.

•preceded by an ADJECTIVE or several


•preceded by an ADJECTIVE or several

ADJECTIVES.

•followed by a PREPOSITION.

•preceded by a PREPOSITION.


• takes a past tense –ed1 form e.g. He walked.

• takes the –s form of the verb for third-person

singular agreement e.g. He goes to work daily.

• takes the –ing form to express the

Verb


• takes the –ing form to express the

progressive aspect e.g. he is running.

• takes the –ed2 form to express the perfective

aspect e.g. I have finished my work.

Syntactic properties of the class of VERB

• preceded by AUXILIARIES. These are words

like do and have e.g. has come, does like.

•preceded by MODAL VERBS. These are words

like can, must, will and should e.g. can

cook, must work, will sleep, and should eat.


•preceded by negation words like not and

never e.g. not cry, never shouts.

• preceded by an ADVERB or ADVERBS e.g.

quickly run.

• can be followed by a NOUN e.g. hate John.


• has morphemes like -ous, -y, -ish, e.g. furious,

angry, brownish, friendly.

•able to form comparatives and superlatives with -er

ADJECTIVE


•able to form comparatives and superlatives with -er

and -est. e.g. bigger , biggest.

Syntactic properties

• can be preceded by ADVERBS e.g. very

angry, more hard-working.

•can occur after determiners like the, a, this,

these, those and numerals and before

NOUNS e.g. the angry boy, those twelve small


NOUNS e.g. the angry boy, those twelve small

monkeys.

• modifies a NOUN.

•cannot immediately follow PREPOSITIONS

e.g. *in angry.

•can follow VERBS. E.g. He is angry.

XXXXXXX


• often followed by the morpheme –ly, e.g. swiftly,

quickly, angrily.

Exceptions: abroad, now, fast, often, well, also, very,

too, never, so, ...


ADVERB



• modifies a VERB; e.g. walks quickly.

•modifies an ADJECTIVE; e.g. swiftly angry.

•modifies another ADVERB; e.g. very angrily.

Constituents

A constituent is a grammatical unit which is part of a larger grammatical unit.

in example (1):

• The cat = noun phrase

• Noun Phrase =determiner + noun


• Noun Phrase =determiner + noun

• "determiner" and "noun“ are the constituents of the noun phrase.

Three aspects of a speaker’s syntactic

knowledge are explicitly represented in tree

diagrams:

1. The linear order of the words in the

sentence,

TREE DIAGRAMS


sentence,

2. the groupings of words into syntactic

categories, and

3. the hierarchical structure of the syntactic

categories.

The Tree Diagram For:

Juliet loves Romeo

S

VPNP


N

V NP

N

Juliet loves Romeo

•Words can be grouped in certain patterns to

form sentences.

•In terms of forms, a sentence consists of a

noun phrase and a verb phrase.

•In terms of function, a sentence consists of a

Form and Function


•In terms of function, a sentence consists of a

subject and a predicate. A predicate must contain

a predicator which is a verb.

•The class of a constituent indicates its form

and what the form does or act as a grammatical

unit indicates its function.


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Tools of Syntactic Analysis, by Dr. Shadia Yousef Banjar