Syntax and its basic notions. (Lecture 4. Part 1)

1. Syntax and its basic notions. Syntactic theories.

Lecture 4. Part 1

2. Lecture outline

The
concerns of syntax.
Syntax: a historical perspective.
The syntactic theories: traditional
and modern. Sentence models.
The syntactic notions.

3. Syntax

deals
with the way words are
combined;
the external functions of words
and their relationship to other
words within the linearly ordered
units – word-groups, sentences,
texts;
the peculiarities of syntactic
units, their behavior in different
contexts.

4. Syntax

the
sentence structure (the
central concern of syntax);
the word groups as parts of the
sentences structure;
the
syntactically
connected
groups of sentences.

5. Syntax

the
means
of
grammatical
connection of words, the study of
the word-groups;
the formation of the sentence.

6. Syntax

from
Greek ‘syn’ – together, ‘taxis’ –
ordering);
grammatical structure of sentences
and word-groups and the regularities
of their functioning in speech;
a subfield of linguistics, which
studies the regularities describing
word-groups and sentences, as well as
the strucutre, features, and types of
word-groups and sentences.

7. Syntax

The
syntax of word-groups: the
rules governing the combinability
of words with other words.
The syntax of sentences: types,
features
of
the
sentence,
relations of words and word
combinations in the sentence.

8. Syntax: a historical perspective

the
sentence – the text (grammar
– text linguistics);
the place of syntactic studies in
linguistics.

9. From Antiquity to nowadays

sentence
classification according
to
the
communicative
goal
(Aristotle);
two
important components in a
sentence – the name and the
verb (Plato);
the
term was coined, the
composite sentence (the Stoics).

10. From Antiquity to nowadays

Up
to the 20th c.: logical vs.
formal and grammatical views of
syntax.
Logical: language is the means of
expressing thoughts, the “parts
of thought” are reflected in and
similar to the “parts of the
sentences”.
Formal and grammatical: types
and features of word-groups and

11. The Grammar of Port Royal

"General
and Rational Grammar,
containing the fundamentals of
the art of speaking, explained in
a clear and natural manner”;
1660 by Antoine Arnauld and
Claude Lancelot.

12. The Grammar of Port Royal

“the general grammar”:
1) there’s a single and natural way
to express thought;
2) strict connection b/w the
categories of thought and
language;
3) all languages express the same
categories.
! Chomsky

13. General grammar denied

Comparative-historical view:
language diversity was
acknowledged;
no ‘natural way’ to express
thoughts;
logic is no longer the basis.
Psychologistic view:
• syntax
has to be based
psychology;
• general syntax is impossible.
on

14. The 20th c. views of syntax Sentence models (by Barkhudarov)

“The parts of the sentence” model
(ancient grammars):
the primary – the subject and the
predicate;
the secondary – the object, the
attribute, the adverbial modifier.

15. The 20th c. views of syntax Sentence models (by Barkhudarov)

The distributive model (Charles Fries):
• the sentence is the sequence of words
of specific word classes, which are
used in particular grammatical forms.
The old man saw a black dog there.
D
3 1a 2-d D
3 1b 4
+ distribution; – linear, no distinction
b/w certain different structures.
E.G.: English cities and villages vs. old
men and children.

16. The 20th c. views of syntax Sentence models (by Barkhudarov)

IC model
• the sentence is hierarchically
layered;
• the sequence of classes of words
+ the syntactic relations b/w
them;
• allows to differentiate b/w the
structures
which
are
distributionally the same.

17. IC analysis

18. IC analysis

19. The 20th c. views of syntax Sentence models (by Barkhudarov)

Transformational model (Chomsky):
The endless variety of sentences in a
language can be reduced to a finite
number of kernels by means of
transformations.
The kernel sentences can be
extended
(depends
on
the
combinability).
The rules of analysis vs. the rules of
generating.

20. The kernel sentences (English)

N
N
N
N
N
N
N
V
(John came)
V р N (John looked at Mary)
V N (John saw Mary)
is N(John is a teacher)
is p N (John is in bed)
is D (John is out)
is A(John is angry)

21. Different “syntaxes”

Traditional
(structural and static):
the structure of the word-groups
and the sentence, their types,
features, structural models.
Semantic
or functional and
semantic: abstract meanings of
structural
elements
of
the
sentence (Charles Bally, modus
vs. dictum).

22. Different “syntaxes”

Generative:
universal deep and
surface
structures,
rules
of
transformations, semantics vs.
structure.
Communicative:
the dynamic
view of the sentence – the
utterance; their actual division
(the theme (old) and the rheme
(new)), intonation and word
order.

23. Different “syntaxes”

Constructional:
constructional
significance/insignificance of a
part of the sentence for the
whole syntactic unit; obligatory
and optional environments of
syntactic elements (I helped her
yesterday).

24. Different “syntaxes”

Stylistic:
syntactic units and
functional styles, inversion, etc.
Text
syntax:
the
rules
of
connecting sentences in the
context, the syntactic units and
their roles in the expressiveness
of the text.

25. Different “syntaxes”

Cognitive:
syntactic constructions
(utterances)
and
human
knowledge;
the
creative
character of language.
Pragmatics: the way we use the
syntactic units; Speech acts
theory.
It’s cold here (stating a fact,
expressing the will, threatening,
etc.)

26. The syntactic notions

Syntactic
unit: a combination
that has at least two
constituents; hierarchical; twofold (syntactic meaning and
form), communicative and noncommunicative nature.
A
word-group, a clause, a
sentence, and a text.

27. The syntactic notions

Syntactic
meaning: the way in
which separate word meanings
are
combined
to
produce
meaningful
word-groups
and
sentences (Green ideas sleep
furiously).
Syntactic form: distributional
formula.
Syntactic function: the function
of a unit on the basis of which it

28. The syntactic notions

Syntactic
position: the position of
an element in a sentence; very
important for analytic languages.
Syntactic
relations:
the
syntagmatic relations between
the syntactic units.

29. The syntactic relations

Coordination (independence):
• word group, sentence, text;
• symmetric and asymmetric (pens
and
pencils,
ladies
and
gentlemen);
• copulative
(you
and
me),
disjunctive
(you
or
me),
adversative (strict but just),
causative-consecutive (He didn’t
come, because…).

30. The syntactic relations

Subordination (dependence,
difference linguistic rank):
• word-group and sentence;
• adverbial
(to
run
slowly),
objective (to help a friend);
attributive (a new house);
• the head and the adjunct.

31. Syntactic relations

Predication (interdependence):
primary (the subject and the
predicate): men worked;
secondary (non-finite forms of the
verb and nominal elements): his
reading, for me to know, the boy
running, I saw him run.