English Syntax – Lecture 1

David BrettUniversity of Sassari 2007

Can you put this scrambled clause in order?

girl beach Australian an sat the on sandy

• An Australian girl sat on the sandy beach

How did you complete this simple task?

• By organising words into phrases and then organising phrases into a clause.

An Australian girl

Noun phrase

}Clause

sat Verb phrase

on the sandy beach

Prepositional phrase

Phrase = Head + modifiers

A girlDet (Modifier) Noun (Head)

Noun Phrase

Phrases can contain other phrases

An Australian girl

Adj N

Det N’

NP

AP

What is wrong with this solution?

• *An sandy girl sat on the Australian beach

• Formal anomaly: An + word starting with a consonant

• Girl (Noun class> animate) excludes certain modifiers e.g. sandy, rocky, cloudy, explosive etc. normally associated with non-animate nouns

How about this?

• * The sandy beach sat on an Australian girl

• Verb SIT implies animate subject

Similarly – are all these phases acceptable?

An Australian girl sat on the

beautiful

beach

picturesque

lovely

good-looking

• Beautiful, picturesque and lovely can modify both human and non-human nouns, whereas good-looking would normally be reserved for humans

• N.B. The heads of phrases have control over their modifiers.

Another example with a preposition phrase

preposition phrase (Head)

preposition phrase (Modifier)

The man put the gun into

the box

the car

the table

In this example into, the head of the PP determines what its modifiers could be

• These relations between heads and modifiers are called dependencies

An important type of dependency is that of the collocation

• Collocation: regular fixed combination of words

• Collocations can be explored using a Concordancer (special type of software for analysing large bodies of texts called Corpora hence Corpus Linguistics)

Adjective + work #1good relationships, the ability to do your best work , and so much more. It's the addiction that

and Household Tales," 1812--15). This classic work spread German children's stories around the

and Wilson governments and his controversial work against pornography and for penal reform. [p]

there are those `chosen" to do the darkest work of the world, to function as God's continuing

usually charge more to carry out private dental work than the prices laid down to treat NHS

2,000 extras: the Nazis wanted this desirable work for their collaborators, and Carne had to

s likely to be more topical than his earlier work and a short challenge to the censors, who are

It read, `Congratulations George on your good work in Parliament.' A little later, but before

vanished. I was concerned that much of the good work that Deirdre had accomplished over the last 3

made the return from Markham Moor island hard work on the O25/7 course in North Nottinghamshire.

lifting them in the autumn sounds like hard work . But what hardy plant will flower

chairman, Sir William Ryland, and through hard work became a director 10 years later. `You had to

to win another four games and do a lot of hard work before we can even reach the semi-finals [p]

the following August, after nine months of hard work . [p] I built the ponds, did the concreting,

and there isn't a secret. It's about hard work and about good players and of course the

top of the stack and yeah I think it was hard work . They were all very black when they came in.

and [tc text=pause] [F01] Mm. Sounds like hard work . [F02] Yeah. [ZGY] [F03] Yes but it did a lot

bifocal movements of the surreal, hour-long work , and for Dmitry Kitaenko the orchestra played

them in the classroom. It's vital, important work . For more information, please call or write

Adjective + work #2 to develop the group's agenda to include more work on education, custody and parenting. [p]

do A but not if you do B we'd probably get more work done that was of direct value to us. But most

all the other institutions put together. Most work in Brussels, but some as based in Luxembourg

ground is [tc text=pause] there's not that much work done by the people in reality but that the

more charitable than the dramatists' other work . It is, too, steadier in [p] dramatic

sat there oohing and aahing over their own work , much as the characters in the picture ooh and

to see you here (in Brescia) in pastoral work or as a seminary professor 4 But it was not to

er really enthusiastic in the practical work [F01] Mm [F02] Erm Lindsay I would say would

the second year, students begin preliminary work on their dissertation which is on a topic of

Until 14 November. [p] Agnes Martin: recent work by distinguished 80 year old American abstract

in securities dealing, trading and sales work . The sharp downturn in market activity since

He's his equivalent. He can do the same work as he's doing and yet that one gets more money

be found in non-sexual friendships, satisfying work , and the development of wide and absorbing

going bust in '91, just as their first single, work Hard (To Enjoy Yourself was grabbing them some

in 1865, carries out evangelistic and social work in more than ninety countries. The BBC Moscow

Jordan) of The Political Dimensions of Social work (Blackwells, 1983) and the author of The

necessary to look at the `value" base of social work , as this informs our understanding of, and

within the local authority or from the social work setting. In all my twelve years" experience, I

and economic inequality. Pre-1945 theoretical work on economic development C. Clark and the per

amounts if we are to carry out all the vital work that we aim to do. [p] Headquarters can supply

would be somewhat ungracious: much voluntary work had been undertaken in its compilation. [p]

Tests for phrases

• Transposition

• Substitution

• Ellipsis

Transposition

• Many sequences of words can be moved together into different slots in a clause

• E.g.

• An Australian girl vandalised the statue. (Active)

• The statue was vandalised by an Australian girl. (Passive)

Substitution

• A single word can substitute the words forming a phrase

• An Australian girl vandalised the statue in Rome.

• E.g. • She vandalised the statue in Rome.• An Australian girl vandalised it in Rome.• An Australian girl vandalised the statue

there.

Ellipsis

• An Australian girl vandalised the statue. An Australian girl attacked a police officer.

• =>An Australian girl vandalised the statue and [An Australian girl] attacked a police officer.

Constituent structure

• Words are organised into phrases

• Phrases are organised into clauses

• Clauses are organised into sentences

• The notion of this hierarchical organisation is called constituent structure.

Clauses

• Clauses are groups of phrases

• Just like phrases, clauses are composed of a head and optional modifiers

• The head of a clause is always a verb

• This may be counter-intuitive, we may prefer to consider the subject more important, however consider:

• It’s raining again.

Complements and adjuncts

• Which of the following clauses would you consider to be complete?

She sang. He gave.

She sang happily. He gave me.

She sang happily to her daughter.

He gave me a newspaper.

• Similarly, could any of the phrases in the clauses below be omitted?

• She paid for the meal by credit card.• On Friday, it was far too cold.• I sent a fax to that nice woman in the insurance

office.• Last year we bought my mother a present for

her birthday

• She paid for the meal [by credit card].

• [On Friday,] it was far too cold.

• I sent a fax [to that nice woman in the insurance office].

• [Last year] we bought my mother a present [for her birthday]

Complements and adjuncts

• Complements are modifiers that must be present

• The presence of Adjuncts is not mandatory• E.g.• The other day he gave me a newspaper from

Malta.• me and a newspaper are both complements• The other day and from Malta are both adjuncts

Constructions

• Copula constructions link subject and other phrase• These can be of three types:

NP Copula AP Jack is very happy.

Ascriptive

NP Copula NP Jack is a boy. Equative

NP Copula PP Jack is in the class.

Locative

Other qualities of constructions

• INTERROGATIVE V. DECLARATIVE

• INTERROGATIVE:

1. YES/NO

2. WH-

• ACTIVE V. PASSIVE

• DIRECT OBJECT v. OBLIQUE OBJECT v. DOUBLE OBJECT

Example 1

• The dog eats brown biscuits

• [NON-COPULA, DECLARATIVE, DIRECT OBJECT, ACTIVE]

Example 2

• Where are the brown biscuits?

• [COPULA, INTERROGATIVE, WH, LOCATIVE]

Example 3

• How many linguists was the light bulb changed by?

• [NON-COPULA, INTERROGATIVE, WH, PASSIVE]