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‘What is Syntax? libro Over the centuries from old english to early modern english, english has moved from being a Synthetic language to an analytic language.
- Synthetic language: any language in which syntactic relations within sentences are expressed by inflection (the change in the form of a word that indicates distinctions of tenses, person, gender, number, mood, voice and case) or by agglutination (word formation by means of morpheme or word unit, clustering). Then the language became gradually an analytic language.
- Analytic language: any language that uses specific grammatical words or particles rather than inflection (q.v.) to express relations within sentences. An analytic language is commonly identified with an isolation language (q.v.) since the two classes of language tend to coincide. Word order in english can vary -we can have subject verb object structure SVO or a verb subject object structure VSO Clearly this VSO complements is what we can find in questions. Then according to the auxiliary the we use we can have Should-clauses like for example = Should the train be late? -Or we can have also object verb subject OVS like for example > Neither do I Or Not always was the house cold, it was also.. So we can say that the word order depends on the emphasis we want to give to the specific part of the sentence ex There on the hill rose a church… It’s important to remember the difference between phrase, clause and sentence. PHRASE= sintagma CLAUSE= proposizione SENTENCE= frase, periodo P=a small group of words standing together as a conceptual unit, typically forming a component of a clause. C=a group of words containing a subject and predicate and functioning as a member of a complex sentence. S=a set of words that is complete in itself, typically containing a subject and predicate, conveying a statement, question, exclamation, or command, and consisting of a main clause and sometimes one or more subordinate clauses. Exercise -None of the following strings of words follows the rules of English Syntax. Change the order of each so that it is a grammatical sentences. a. Has been eating the chocolate cake the old man b. The old man the chocolate cake has been eating c. Has been eating the old man the chocolate cake. Answer = The old man has been eating the chocolate cake Three ways to identify phrases There are three ways through witch it is possible to identify phrases: - Movement
- Meaning
- Substitution These different parts are phrases
- Movement: What moves together is a phrase. a. The old man ate the chocolate cake b. What the old man ate was the chocolate cake c. It was the chocolate cake that the old man ate. d. The chocolate cake was eaten by the old man. Marked options a.’’It was man the chocolate cake which the old ate’’. b. ‘’The the cake was eaten by chocolate old man’’.
- Meaning: What means together is a phrase. Consider the following groups: a. The the old b. cake which the c. the leathery d. in the e. cake ate f. large evil Can you figure out the meaning?
- Substitution: What substitutes for a phrase is also a phrase. Exercise Look at the following sentence a. Davina sold petrol yesterday at the corner store. Substitute another phrase for each of the underlined phrases> ex we can change Davina with John
The functional constituents of phrases
Heads and modifiers -Phrases are formed by constituents with a function. In particular we can see that phrases have heads These Heads determine the grammatical properties of the phrase. Grammatical properties are distributional properties because if you have a phrase we will see that that phrase is placed always in the same position in a sentence. So distributional properties it is where units come relative to one another. Ex Look at the distribution of ‘’in a train’’ a. Granville met his beloved in a train. b. You always get an odd range of smells in a train. c. The emergency cord in a train should not be touched without good reason. Which grammatical category determines the distribution of in a train? We can also say that
- heads are normally obligatory.
- heads are semantically central because we have the properties applied to the noun and
- Non- heads are modifiers
The structure of noun phrases
Noun phrase Examples a. the dog b. a moderately short programme c. some very old cars
possessives also can be very tricky like in ‘’my sister’s dog’s bowl’’ More constituents of noun phrases prepositional phrases e.g. the man in the moon > this preposition can follow the noun so it is a post modifier Pronouns Pronouns are those particles that we find in a text that have noun phrases as antecedents. e.g. The snake slid through the grass as it tried to escape. Pronouns agree with their antecedents in number and gender. e.g. grandmother ... she uncle Jim ... he the lawnmower ... it the team ... they Pronouns take the case of their place in the syntax of the sentence> that is something that is probably left from germanic languages e.g. He saw her bike near them.
The structure of adjective phrases
Adjective phrase Examples a. quite old b. moderately expensive c. quite moderately long in the arms Representing the structure of adjective phrase adjective phrase adverb phrase adjective degree adverb quite old
Between the Constituents of adjective phrase we can distinguish: Modifiers are adverb phrases (including degree adverbs, they can’t stay alone) e.g. moderately expensive prepositional phrases e.g. long in the arm When we talk about adjectives we can say that they can be find in attributive and predicate position the attributive position is before the noun, e.g. the red sky sequencing restrictions the predicate position is after the verb, e.g. The sky is red. A small blue car, a big gas lamp ATTRIBUTIVE The car is small and blue and near the park. PREDICATE Application The choice between attributive and predicative adjectives can have an impact on descriptive writing. Look, for example, at the following description of an Icelandic warrior. ...he was tall, strong, and skilled in arms, even-tempered and very shrewd, ruthless with his enemies and always reliable in matters of importance. from Njal's Saga translated by Magnus Magnusson and Hermann Pálsson
In this case all the adjective phrases are in predicate
position.
Tall is an adjective phrase consisting of just one
phrase , strong is the same.
Skilled in arms >prepositional phrase where skilled is
the head and in arms is the post – modifier.
Even – temper is a compound , is an adjective. Very
shrewd we have an adjective and a degree adjective
‘’very’’. Ruthless with the enemies is a post
modification etc..
II = in the second zone we can find everything else that doesn’t fit in the others zone like: big, slow, angry, helpful Ex: A stolen old car = wrong An old stolen car = right Zones within zones we can distinguish between: A nice new dress= evaluative adjective A recognizable (recognizable) V pattern (concrete)= abstract adjective This is more a tendency, it depends on the priority.
Multivariate or univariate strings
Multivariate Ex-Those two beautiful film stars The above noun group consists of a demonstrative those a numeral two an adjective beautiful and two nouns film and stars. We have a Deictic Epithet classifier, it has to be before the head noun because I want to classify the head noun Univariate > The adjectives are not related directly to the head noun Ex 1 Overseas immigrants entry – limit controversy 2 Opera donation scandal 3 Hospital doctors strike row > in this case Hospital classifies ‘’doctors’’ and not row acid rain | pioggia acida air quality criteria | criteri di qualità dell’aria flue gas treatment | trattamento dei gas di Dvandva : a class of compound words having two immediate constituents that are equal in rank and related to each other as if joined by and: a compound word belonging to this class (as bittersweet, secretary – treasure, sociopolitical). Dvandva has the stress on the second part of the compound
Prepositional phrases
- have a preposition as head
• and the modifiers can be:
-noun phrases. e.g. up on the plateau -degree advers. e.g. just inside the door prepositional phrase preposition (head) noun phrase determiner noun in the garden
Find the prepositional phrases in the following extract At first it seemed there was no one about. Then he saw a single figure, a girl, far down the beach, close to where the surf was breaking, sitting under a beach umbrella. He went towards her. When he was close enough to see her clearly he sat down on the white sand. Verb phrases
• have lexical verbs as head (lexical verb=is the main verb, member of an open class of verbs that
includes all verbs exept auxiliary)
- examples -a. gave Jill a book -b. has given Jill a book -c. will be giving Jill a book Auxiliary verbs -Are constituents of the verb phrase which precede the lexical verb. These can be: -Modals: can, could, shall, should, will, would, may, might, must -Aspect auxiliaries> the aspect it’s about the state of action of a verb, so we have: -perfective has -progressive be -Passive auxiliary be -Dummy auxiliary do -Adverb phrases can also precede the head verb phrase auxiliary auxiliary auxiliary lexical verb verb verb verb could have been cut sarebbe potuto essere tagliato -will be dealt with after the next section on functions in a clause. An important element in syntax is the Do, it can be used in differet situations =>
• before the main verb:
- Emphasis = I do know you!
- Negative= I don’t know you
- Do you know Modals > after the modals there is an infinite form without ‘’to’’ and there’s no flexion for the third person.
- Before the main verb I could open the window I can open the window I might be wrong! It must be true I cannot be true Subjuntive (vedi se c’è qualcosa sul libro) I asked that Peter be present at our meeting I wish I were… I suggest that Peter open… God save the queen
Clauses within clauses -Sally hoped that Paul would meet her today -Gerry understood why the jury found him guilty -Horace cried after his dog died Note that the underlined constituents are clauses i.e. they have subjects and predicates. It is possible to add a close not just after a close but also after a phrase, specifically a noun phrase. We can se some examples> Functions of embedded clauses a. Johanna knew [that Herry would come] b. The expectation [that Herry would come] The identical embedded clause can perform different functions. -In a. it is a direct object. -In b. it is a modifier of a noun phrase (post - modification) -She decided [ that [her bycicle was defective]] >this is a full sentence. She decided=first clause. Her bycicle was defective=another clause. The element, this conjunction ‘’that’’ is embedding the two clauses. -John was improving [because [the doctor had seen him]] the same happens here. -Complementizer > refers to the element that can embed clauses (libro) in these sentences ‘’that’’ and ‘’because’’ Representing the structure of embedded clauses in this example we have a noun phrase followed by a clause. NP DET N S the cat which lives with Nellie examples about how embedding take place: -The cat was sleeping in [what Freda had knitted] >here we have a clause to refer to an object -She seemed astounded [that Fred played bridge] The internal structure of embedded clauses -The complementizer, or subordinating conjunction The constituent introduces the subordinate (or embedded) clause e.g. that, whether, whenever, while. And then the actual close follows. -so as a result we have a complex sentences, so a sentence characterized by a subordination is a complex sentence Function of embedded clauses Embedded clause may be:
- subject ex That weeds had invaded the garden lowered the price. That Billy leaves early creates problems. What we did yesterday scared Tom > these are subjects
- object The agent knew that weeds had invaded the garden
- intensive complements It seemed that weeds had invaded the garden
- Modifier of noun (relative clause) The garden which was invaded by weeds >all these sentences are not complex sentences
What are complements in general? Complements are there to complement the meaning of the predicate, so they are required by the head to complete its meaning. we can distinguish> -direct objects -indirect object -intensive complements Subcategories of heads -Heads of phrase belong to subcategories on the basis of the kind of complements they take. -Transitive verbs take objects. Ex: to massage (what?) -Intransitive verbs do not Ex: to sleep (what? NO) -Some verbs take double objects Buy Sub - categorization (pag 118) The focus here is on the verb> Ex -The athlete jumped (the hurdle= ostacolo), this verb may be either transitive and intransitive. -Jill put the book on the table. -They decided the matter > decide is always followed by a direct object -They decided that Freda should be president Verbs subcategorize for complementizers -Max understood [that [Joanna had driven his sportscar]]. -Max understood whether Joanna had driven his sportcar. NO -Max didn’t understand whether Joanna had driven his sportscar. NO -Max didn’t know whether Joanna had driven his sportscar. -Max understood [for [Joanna to drive his sportscar]]. NO Complementizers subcategorize for the tense of their complement clause -The committee intended for John to come -The committee intended that John might come. -The committee intended that John to come. -The committee intended for John might come. Non finite verb phrases VP LexV to swim Finite and non-finite clauses -Finite clauses are tensed, e.g. they contain either a modal auxiliary or past or present tense forms. -Non - finite clauses do not contain either a modal or past or present tense forms. -Non – finite clauses often have to in the place of tense. Coordination -Syntactic constituents may be coordinated with constituents of the same category. -Three main coordinating conjunctions: And, or, (neither)… Nor Also, but
- Cleft sentence: Ted Broke the plate It was ted who broke the plate It was the plate that Ted broke
- Extraposition: When you say doesn’t matter It doesn’t matter what you say I find reading comics function I find it fun, reading comics
- Existentials: Many people are in danger There are many people in danger Exist/arise There arose a great cry Idioms -To bite the dust > to die -To pass the buck > to pass the responsibility Metaphora -Your love is a red rose. Theme Defined by Halliday as: what the message is concerned with: the point of departure for what the speaker is going to say Ex: The man told me where to go The theme is The man because that is what the sentence is all about. Ex: My house in London is valuable but not for sale The theme is My house in London. We should not, however, confuse theme with subject, which is a grammatical rather than a communicative category, or agent, which is a different grammatical category present in passive expressions, because, for example: In a sentence such as: Yesterday afternoon we went to the park The theme is Yesterday afternoon, because, in communicative terms, that is what the speaker is talking about. It is not, however, the grammatical subject but an adverbial noun phrase. The subject is we but doesn’t occur as the theme because it is actually part of the rheme. In a sentence such as: Spending time at the zoo is just what the children like best. The theme is Spending time at the zoo which is also the grammatical subject but formed by in a sentence such as: Because it was raining , we stayed in and watched TV. The theme is Because it was raining and that is a clause in itself and not the subject of anything. It is, however, also a subordinate clause which cannot stand alone and make sense. In a sentence such as: The grass is kept short by the sheep The theme is The grass which is a noun subject but not the agent (it is the patient in a passive sentence). In a sentence such as: The people who wanted a refund went to the manager’s office The theme is The people who wanted a refund because that relative clause structure is the starting point from which the rest of the utterance may be understood. Over that hill and across the bridge is where you need to go The theme is Over that hill and across the bridge which is a combination of two prepositional phrases.
The car that I bought yesterday The theme is The car because that is what the rest of the clause is concerned with. It is not the subject of the verb, it is, in grammatical terms, I (i.e. the entity on which the verb acts) Markedness and themes There is a good deal more on the meaning of markedness. It is true that in most simple declarative utterances the theme and the subject are often the same thing but that is not always the case and things can become more complex, as we shall see. So, for example, in: My mother did the work on Tuesday we have the theme My mother which also happens to be the subject of the verb, do. That sentence is unmarked. However, in: The work was done on Tuesday by my mother The theme is the work which is grammatically still the subject but functionally the patient in a passive clause. In this case, the sentence is marked because the speaker/writer has deliberately chosen to place the work in theme position. And in On Tuesday , my mother did the work The theme is On Tuesday because it is raised to mark it for emphasis. The important point here is that when the theme and the subject are the same, the word order, in English, is described as unmarked, i.e. it carries no spacial communicative force. This is the only true for declarative sentences. In interrogative sentence, the theme is the finite verb: May we come in? And in imperative constructions etc.. (libro) Rheme The Rheme may be defined as: everything else that follows in the sentence which consists of what the speaker states about, or in regard to, the starting point of the utterance. So, in all the examples above, the rheme is what follows the theme (all of it). The term rheme is another communicative category, not a grammatical one. The grammatical term whith which it is sometimes confused is predicate which is defined as the part of the sentence which says something about the subject. So, for example the underlined parts of these sentences are the predicates. Yesterday. Paul went for a walk. Surprisengly she refused the job. Because they tell us about the subject of the sentence. However, seen communicatively, the rhemes of these sentences are: Paul went for a walk.
- Adverbs are often placed in several places in a sentence. An adverb is an adjunct if it is neatly placed within the sentence. An adverb is a disjunct if it is set off from the rest of the sentence and acts as a kind of evaluator for it. Finally, an adverb acts as a conjunct if it is set off from a sentence, usually with a comma, and serves as a connection between two ideas.
Theme/Rheme - Given/New Examples of theme and rheme -Il re è arrivato/È arrivato il re. The king is here. Here is the king. > in this case, the infromations shift, in the first “re” è il theme e arrivato è il rheme, in the sentence in english is the opposite. -Voleva scoprire la verità, ma la verità è difficile da scoprire. > la verità nella prima frase è rheme, nella seconda è theme -Non sapevo cosa fare, ma improvvisamente mi è venuta un'idea. -A segnare è stato Zola. Look at the following sentences:
- The M1 goes from London to Leeds.
- The motorway from London to Leeds is called the M1. In this case we have reference to the M1, so we can change the inform from the first sentence to the second. M1 in the first sentence is the theme while in the second is the rheme Look at the following short paragraphs:
- I was born in Glasgow, Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland.
- I was born in Glasgow. The largest city in Scotland is Glasgow. The same as above. In the first example Glasgow goes from being the theme to being the rheme, while in the second is rheme in both sentences. The following are similar
- In the past 60 years, as many as 65 different classification systems have been developed to define the dimensions of leadership. One such classification system is the scheme proposed by Bass (1990, pp. 11-20). We have “65 different classification systems” and then it is repeted in “One such classification system”, so we are examnding one rheme
- In the past 60 years, as many as 65 different classification systems have been developed to define the dimensions of leadership. The scheme proposed by Bass (1990, pp. 11-20) is one such classification system. Here we are inverting again, so this “The scheme proposed by Bass “ should be the new inform.
- In the past 60 years, as many as 65 different classification systems have been developed to define the dimensions of leadership. Bass (1990, po 11-20) proposed such a classification system. The connection between, in terms of information focus, between the first sentence and the second is not so clear. So it is more appropriate to create a link immediately between the ones underlined
This is a technical text The complete electrical behaviour of any valve or transistor can be described by stating the interrelation of the currents and the voltages between all the electrodes. These relationships can conveniently be displayed graphically, and the various curves are known as the 'characteristics' of the device. In principle, all the characteristics should be available to the designer proposing to use the device in a circuit. Behaviour –> Interrelation Relationships –> Characteristics Characteristics>Available to designer These are the key term, in this case a behaviour is described by the interrelation. The interrelation becomes then the theme of the next sentence in ‘’These relationships”, then we have the term characteristics that becomes the theme in the next sentence. Another example The early feminist movement was greatly influenced by the work on Mary Wollstonecraft. She proposed a feminist agenda whose aims were to expose the exclusion of women from traditionally male spheres such as politics, economics, education and religion. These aims became a main focus for religious women in particular in the United States. The early feminist movement –> Mary Wollstonecraft she –> whose aims were to expose... These aims became… Different example: -Anthropology is the study of humankind, especially of Homo sapiens, the biological species to which we human beings belong. It is the study of how our species evolved from more primitive organisms; it is also the study of how our species developed a mode of communication known as language and a mode of social life known as culture. It is the study of how culture evolved and diversified. And finally, it is the study of how culture, people, and nature interact wherever human beings are found. Anthropology → Study of humankind Anthropology → How species evolved Anthropology → Development of language and culture Anthropology → How culture evolved Anthropology →→→ How they interact This is another form of expressing thoughts and ideas , in this text we are adding information regarding one aspect ‘’Anthropology” , using the pronoun we are providing all the details just keeping the rheme the same
B. classifier C. epithet Sentence 7. shows an example of A. existential B. inversion C. fronting In sentence 8. "the remains of a 'big monkey' in a cave" A. given B. new C. theme Cohesion and coherence Cohesion is the network of lexical, grammatical, and other relations which link various parts of a text. These relations organize and, to some extent, create a text, for instance, by requiring the reader/listener to interpret words and expressions by reference to other words and expressions in the surrounding sentences. Cohesion is a surface relation and it connects together the actual words and expressions that we can see or hear. One of the most salient phenomena of discourse is the fact that sentences/utterances are linked together (cf. textum, texture). There are two types of connections that tie discourse together:
- Endophoric connections (which have their manifestation in the discourse itself) –> cohesion
- Exophoric connections (which can be made based on information/knowledge outside the discourse) → coherence Consider the following example: "Susan got pregnant and she married." Whom does the pronoun she refer to? It probably refers to Susan. This is an endophoric connection, which contributes to cohesion. How do you interpret the sentence/utterance? Probably Mary's pregnancy was the reason for her to marry. This is an exophoric connection, which creates coherence. In order to make sense to us, discourse must be both cohesive and coherent. Take a look at the following example: "A week has seven days. Every day I feed my cat. Cats have four legs. My leg hurts. Hurts is a verb." This sequence is highly cohesive, as each sentence is connected to the previous one at the level of discourse. However, it is not coherent, because no plausible connections can be made outside the discourse. Now take a look at the following example: "Liverpool shot a goal. The whistle blew." The sequence is not cohesive, since no clear connections are made at the level of discourse.
Nevertheless, the sequence is coherent, as the reader/listener can draw plausible conclusions about what happened based on his/her knowledge of the context. When faced with any stretch of discourse, we expect it to be sufficiently cohesive and coherent. If some connections are missing, we will make an effort to establish them on our own. Activity: try to reconstitute the original sequence.
- However, nobody had seen one for months.
- He thought he saw a shape in the bushes.
- Mark had told him about the foxes.
- John looked out of the window.
- Could it be a fox? The original sequence is: John looked out of the window. He (→ John) thought he saw (looking out) a shape in the bushes. Could it (→ the shape) be a fox? Mark had told him (→ John) about the foxes (fox). However (the fox hypothesis) , nobody had seen one ( ⇒ foxes) for months. In order to reconstitute the original sequence, you have relied on the existing cohesive ties ( ⇒xxx), but you have also drawn upon your knowledge of the world. Cohesion: grammatical & lexical Let us now focus on cohesion, that is, the connections that have their manifestation in the discourse. There are two types of cohesion: Grammatical cohesion: substitution Substitution is the replacement of one or more words (typically a noun, a verb, or an entire clause) by a 'dummy' word, like in the examples below: a) "This pen doesn't work. Give me another one." b) "You asked me to call them but I haven't done it yet c) "Are they still arguing in there?" - "No, it just seems so The main function of substitution is to make texts more economic and concise by avoiding tedious repetition. Activity: introduce substitutions where needed. So we can say that we have five main cohesive devices in English: reference, substitution, ellipsis, conjunction, and lexical cohesion.
