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Title: Chapter Four From Word to Text


1
Chapter FourFrom Word to Text
2
Contents
  • Syntactic Relations
  • Grammatical Construction and Its Constituents
  • Syntactic Function
  • Category
  • Phrase Clause and Sentence
  • Recursiveness
  • Beyond the Sentence

3
  • Syntax is the study of the rules governing the
    ways different constituents are combined to form
    sentences in a language, or the study
  • of the interrelationships between elements in
    sentence structures.

4
1. Syntactic relations
  • Syntactic relations can be analysed into three
    kinds
  • relations of position
  • relations of substitutability
  • relations of co-occurrence

5
1.1 Relations of Position
  • For language to fulfill its communicative
    function, it must have a way to mark the
    grammatical roles of the various phrases that can
    occur in a clause.
  • The boy kicked the ball
  • NP1 NP2
  • Subject Object

6
  • Positional relation, or WORD ORDER, refers to the
    sequential arrangement of words in a language.
  • If the words in a sentence fail to occur in a
    fixed order required by the convention of a
    language, one tends to produce an utterance
    either ungrammatical or nonsensical at all.
  • For example,

7
  • The boy kicked the ball
  • Boy the ball kicked the
  • The ball kicked the boy
  • The teacher saw the students
  • The students saw the teacher

8
  • Positional relations are a manifestation of one
    aspect of Syntagmatic Relations observed by F. de
    Saussure.
  • They are also called Horizontal Relations or
    simply Chain Relations.

9
  • Word order is among the three basic ways (word
    order, genetic and areal classifications) to
    classify languages in the world
  • SVO, VSO, SOV, OVS, OSV, and VOS.
  • English belongs to SVO type, though this does not
    mean that SVO is the only possible word order.

10
1.2 Relation of Substitutability
  • The Relation of Substitutability refers to
    classes or sets of words substitutable for each
    other grammatically in sentences with the same
    structure.
  • The ______ smiles. 
  • man
  • boy
  • girl

11
  • It also refers to groups of more than one word
    which may be jointly substitutable grammatically
    for a single word of a particular set.
  • strong man
  • The tallest boy smiles.
  • pretty girl
  • yesterday.
  • He went there last week.
  • the day before.

12
  • This is also called Associative Relations by
    Saussure, and Paradigmatic Relations by Hjemslev.
  • To make it more understandable, they are called
    Vertical Relations or Choice Relations.

13
1.3 Relation of Co-occurrence
  • It means that words of different sets of clauses
    may permit, or require, the occurrence of a word
    of another set or class to form a sentence or a
    particular part of a sentence.
  • For instance, a nominal phrase can be preceded by
    a determiner and adjective(s) and followed by a
    verbal phrase.

14
  • Relations of co-occurrence partly belong to
    syntagmatic relations, partly to paradigmatic
    relations.

15
2. Grammatical construction and its
constituents
  • 2.1 Grammatical Construction
  • Any syntactic string of words ranging from
    sentences over phrasal structures to certain
    complex lexemes.
  • an apple
  • ate an apple
  • Mary ate an apple

16
2.2 Constituents and Phrase Structure
  • Constituent is a part of a larger linguistic
    unit. Several constituents together form a
    construction
  • the girl (NP)
  • ate the apple (VP)
  • the girl ate the apple (S)

17
Immediate Constituent Analysis(IC Analysis)
  • The girl ate the apple

18
Phrase StructureTree diagram
S NP VP Det
N V NP Det
N The girl ate the apple
19
Word-level Phrasal
Nnoun Aadjective Vverb Ppreposition Detdeterminer Advadverb Conjconjunction NPnoun phrase APadjective phrase VPverb phrase PPpreposition phrase Ssentence or clause
20
Bracketing
  • Bracketing is not as common in use, but it is an
    economic notation in representing the
    constituent/phrase structure of a grammatical
    unit.
  • (((The) (girl)) ((ate) ((the) (apple))))
  • SNPDet TheN girlVPV ateNPDet theN
    apple

21
2.3 Endocentric and Exocentric Constructions
  • Endocentric construction is one whose
    distribution is functionally equivalent to that
    of one or more of its constituents, i.e., a word
    or a group of words, which serves as a definable
    centre or head.
  • Usually noun phrases, verb phrases and adjective
    phrases belong to endocentric types because the
    constituent items are subordinate to the Head.

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  • Exocentric construction refers to a group of
    syntactically related words where none of the
    words is functionally equivalent to the group as
    a whole, that is, there is no definable Centre
    or Head inside the group, usually including
  • the basic sentence,
  • the prepositional phrase,
  • the predicate (verb object) construction, and
  • the connective (be complement) construction.

24
  • The boy smiled. (Neither constituent can
    substitute for the sentence structure as a
    whole.)
  • He hid behind the door. (Neither constituent can
    function as an adverbial.)
  • He kicked the ball. (Neither constituent stands
    for the verb-object sequence.)
  • John seemed angry. (After division, the
    connective construction no longer exists.)

25
2.4 Coordination and Subordination
  • Endocentric constructions fall into two main
    types, depending on the relation between
    constituents

26
Coordination
  • Coordination is a common syntactic pattern in
    English and other languages formed by grouping
    together two or more categories of the same type
    with the help of a conjunction such as and, but
    and or .
  • These two or more words or phrases or clauses
    have equivalent syntactic status, each of the
    separate constituents can stand for the original
    construction functionally.

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  • Coordination of NPs
  • NP the lady or NP the tiger
  • Coordination of VPs
  • VP go to the library and VP read a book
  • Coordination of PPs
  • PP down the stairs and PP out the door
  • Coordination of APs
  • AP quite expensive and AP very beautiful
  • Coordination of Ss
  • S John loves Mary and S Mary loves John too.

28
Subordination
  • Subordination refers to the process or result of
    linking linguistic units so that they have
    different syntactic status, one being dependent
    upon the other, and usually a constituent of the
    other.
  • The subordinate constituents are words which
    modify the head. Consequently, they can be called
    modifiers.

29
  • two  dogs
  •           Head
  • (My brother) can drink (wine).
  • Head
  • Swimming in the lake (is fun).
  • Head
  • (The pepper was) hot beyond endurance.
  • Head

30
Subordinate clauses
  • Clauses can be used as subordinate constituents.
    There are three basic types of subordinate
    clauses
  • complement clauses
  • adjunct (or adverbial) clauses
  • relative clauses

31
  • John believes that the airplane was invented by
    an Irishman. (complement clause)
  • Elizabeth opened her presents before John
    finished his dinner. (adverbial clause)
  • The woman that I love is moving to the south.
    (relative clause)

subordinate clause
32
3. Syntactic Function
  • The syntactic function shows the relationship
    between a linguistic form and other parts of the
    linguistic pattern in which it is used.
  • Names of functions are expressed in terms of
    subjects, objects, predicators, modifiers,
    complements, etc.

33
3.1 Subject
  • In some languages, subject refers to one of the
    nouns in the nominative case.
  • The typical example can be found in Latin, where
    subject is always in nominative case, such as
    pater and filius in the following examples.
  • pater filium amat (the father loves the son)
  • patrum filius amat (the son loves the father)

34
  • In English, the subject of a sentence is often
    said to be the agent, or the doer of the action,
    while the object is the person or thing acted
    upon by the agent.
  • This definition seems to work for these
    sentences
  • Mary slapped John. A dog bit Bill.

35
  • but is clearly wrong in the following examples
  • John was bitten by a dog.
  • John underwent major heart surgery.
  • In order to account for the case of subject in
    passive voice, we have two other terms
    grammatical subject (John) and logical
    subject (a dog).

36
  • Another traditional definition of the subject is
    what the sentence is about (i.e., topic).
  • Again, this seems to work for many sentences,
    such as
  • Bill is a very crafty fellow.
  • but fails in others, such as
  • (Jack is pretty reliable, but) Bill I dont
    trust.
  • As for Bill, I wouldnt take his promises very
    seriously.

37
  • All three sentences seem to be about Bill thus
    we could say that Bill is the topic of all three
    sentences.
  • The above sentences make it clear that the topic
    is not always the grammatical subject.
  • What characteristics do subjects have?

38
Word order
  • Subject ordinarily precedes the verb in the
    statement
  • Sally collects stamps.
  • Collects Sally stamps.

39
Pro-forms
  • The first and third person pronouns in English
    appear in a special form when the pronoun is a
    subject, which is not used when the pronoun
    occurs in other positions
  • He loves me.
  • I love him.
  • We threw stones at them.
  • They threw stones at us.

40
Agreement with the verb
  • In the simple present tense, an -s is added to
    the verb when a third person subject is singular,
    but the number and person of the object or any
    other element in the sentence have no effect at
    all on the form of the verb
  • She angers him.
  • They anger him.   
  • She angers them.

41
Content questions
  • If the subject is replaced by a question word
    (who or what), the rest of the sentence remains
    unchanged, as in
  • John stole the Queens picture from the British
    Council.
  • Who stole the Queens picture from the British
    council?

42
  • When any other element of the sentence is
    replaced by a question word, an auxiliary verb
    must appear before the subject.
  • What would John steal, if he had the chance?
  • What did John steal from the British Council?
  • Where did John steal the Queens picture from?

43
Tag question
  • A tag question is used to seek confirmation of a
    statement. It always contains a pronoun which
    refers back to the subject, and never to any
    other element in the sentence.
  • John loves Mary, doesnt he?
  • Mary loves John, doesnt she?
  • John loves Mary, doesnt she?

44
3.2 Predicate
  • Predicate refers to a major constituent of
    sentence structure in a binary analysis in which
    all obligatory constituents other than the
    subject were considered together.
  • It usually expresses actions, processes, and
    states that refer to the subject.
  • The boy is running. (process)
  • Peter broke the glass. (action)
  • Jane must be mad! (state)
  • The word predicator is suggested for verb or
    verbs included in a predicate.

45
3.3 Object
  • Object is also a term hard to define. Since,
    traditionally, subject can be defined as the doer
    of the action, object may refer to the receiver
    or goal of an action, and it is further
    classified into Direct Object and Indirect
    Object.
  • Mother bought a doll.
  • Mother gave my sister  a doll.
  • IO   DO

46
  • In some inflecting languages, object is marked by
    case labels the accusative case for direct
    object, and the dative case for indirect object.
  • In English, object is recognized by tracing its
    relation to word order (after the verb and
    preposition) and by inflections (of pronouns).
  • Mother gave a doll to my sister.
  • John kicked me.

47
  • Modern linguists suggest that object refers to
    such an item that it can become subject in a
    passive transformation.
  • John broke the glass.
  • ? The glass was broken by John.
  • Peter saw Jane.
  • ? Jane was seen by Peter.

48
  • Although there are nominal phrases in the
    following, they are by no means objects because
    they cannot be transformed into passive voice.
  • He died last week.
  • The match lasted three hours.
  • He changed trains at Manchester. (Trains were
    changed by him at Manchester.)

49
4. Category
  • The term category refers to the defining
    properties of these general units
  • Categories of the noun number, gender, case and
    countability
  • Categories of the verb tense, aspect, voice

50
4.1 Number
  • Number is a grammatical category used for the
    analysis of word classes displaying such
    contrasts as singular, dual, plural, etc.
  • In English, number is mainly observed in nouns,
    and there are only two forms singular and
    plural, such as dog dogs.
  • Number is also reflected in the inflections of
    pronouns and verbs, such as He laughs They
    laugh, this man these men.

51
  • In other languages, for example, French, the
    manifestation of number can also be found in
    adjectives and articles.
  • le cheval royal (the royal horse)
  • les chevaux royaux (the royal horses)

52
4.2 Gender
  • Such contrasts as masculine feminine
    neuter, animate inanimate, etc. for the
    analysis of word classes.
  • Though there is a correlation between natural
    gender and grammatical gender, the assignment may
    seem quite arbitrary in many cases.
  • For instance, in Latin, ignis fire is
    masculine, while flamma flame is feminine.

53
  • English gender contrast can only be observed in
    pronouns and a small number of nouns, and, they
    are mainly of the natural gender type.
  • he she it
  • prince princess
  • author authoress

54
  • In French, gender is manifested also both in
    adjectives and articles.
  • beau cadeau (fine gift)
  • belle maison (fine house)
  • Le cadeau est beau. (The gift is good.)
  • La maison est belle. (The house is beautiful.)

55
  • Sometimes gender changes the lexical meaning as
    well, for example, in French
  • le poele (the stove)
  • la poele (the frying pan)
  • le pendule (the pendulum)
  • la pendule (the clock)

56
4.3 Case
  • The case category is used in the analysis of word
    classes to identify the syntactic relationship
    between words in a sentence.
  • In Latin grammar, cases are based on variations
    in the morphological forms of the word, and are
    given the terms accusative, nominative,
    dative, etc.
  • There are five cases in ancient Greek and eight
    in Sanskrit. Finnish has as many as fifteen
    formally distinct cases in nouns, each with its
    own syntactic function.

57
  • In English, case is a special form of the noun
    which frequently corresponds to a combination of
    preposition and noun, and it is realized in three
    channels
  • inflection
  • following a preposition
  • word order
  • as manifested in
  • teacher teachers
  • with to a man
  • John kicked Peter Peter kicked John

58
4.4 Agreement
  • Agreement (or concord) may be defined as the
    requirement that the forms of two or more words
    of specific word classes that stand in specific
    syntactic relationship with one another shall
    also, be characterized by the same
    paradigmatically marked category (or categories).

59
  • This syntactic relationship may be anaphoric, as
    when a pronoun agrees with its antecedent,
  • Whose is this pen? --Oh, its the one I lost.
  • or it may involve a relation between a head and
    its dependent, as when a verb agrees with its
    subject and object
  • Each person may have one coin.

60
  • Agreement of number between nouns and verbs
  • This man runs.   The bird flies. 
  • These men run.      These birds fly.

61
5. Phrase, Clause and Sentence
  • Sentence
  • Clause
  • Phrase
  • Word

62
  • the three tallest girls (nominal phrase)
  • has been doing (verbal phrase)
  • extremely difficult (adjectival phrase)
  • to the door (prepositional phrase)
  • very fast (adverbial phrase)

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  • The best thing would be to leave early.
  • Its great for a man to be free.
  • Having finished their task, they came to help us.
  • John being away, Bill had to do the work.
  • Filled with shame, he left the house.
  • All our savings gone, we started looking for
    jobs.
  • Its no use crying over spilt milk.
  • Do you mind my opening the window?

65
Sentence traditional approach
  • simple
  • Sentence complex
  • non-simple
  • compound

66
Sentence functional approach
  • Yes/no

  • Interrogative
  • Indicative
    wh-

  • Declarative
  • Sentence

  • Jussive
  • Imperative

  • Optative

67
Basic sentence types Bolinger
  • Mother fell. (Nominal intransitive verbal)
  • Mother is young. (Nominal copula complement)
  • Mother loves Dad. (Nominal transitive verbal
    nominal).
  • Mother fed Dad breakfast. (Nominal transitive
    verbal nominal nominal)
  • There is time. (There existential nominal)

68
Basic sentence types Quirk
  • SVC    Mary is kind.
  • a nurse.
  • SVA    Mary is here.
  • in the house.
  • SV      The child is laughing.
  • SVO    Somebody caught the ball.
  • SVOC   We have proved him wrong.
  •                                          a
    fool.
  • SVOA    I put the plate on the table.
  • SVOO   She gives me expensive presents.

69
6. Recursiveness
  • Recursiveness mainly means that a phrasal
    constituent can be embedded within another
    constituent having the same category, but it has
    become an umbrella term such important linguistic
    phenomena as coordination and subordination,
    conjoining and embedding, hypotactic and
    paratactic.
  • All these are means to extend sentences.
  • How long can a sentence be?

70
  • Theoretically, there is no limit to the embedding
    of one relative clause into another relative
    clause, so long as it does not become an obstacle
    to successful communication.
  • The same holds true for nominal clauses and
    adverbial clauses.
  • I met a man who had a son whose wife sold cookies
    that she had baked in her kitchen that was fully
    equipped with electrical appliances that were new

71
  • Johns sister
  • Johns sisters husband
  • Johns sisters husbands uncle
  • Johns sisters husbands uncles daughter, etc.
  • that house in Beijing
  • the garden of that house in Beijing
  • the tree in the garden of that house in Beijing
  • a bird on the tree in the garden of that house in
    Beijing

72
6.1 Conjoining
  • Conjoining coordination.
  • Conjunctions and, but, and or.
  • John bought a hat and his wife bought a handbag.
  • Give me liberty or give me death. 

73
6.2 Embedding
  • Embedding subordination.
  • Main clauses and subordinate clauses.
  • Three basic types of subordinate clauses
  • Relative clause I saw the man who had visited
    you last year.
  • Complement clause I dont know whether Professor
    Li needs this book.
  • Adverbial clause If you listened to me, you
    wouldn't make mistakes.

74
7. Text and discourse
  • The development of modern linguistic science has
    helped push the study of syntax beyond the
    traditional sentence boundary.
  • Linguists are now exploring the syntactic
    relation between sentences in a paragraph or
    chapter or the whole text, which leads to the
    emergence of text linguistics and discourse
    analysis. 

75
7.1 Sentential Connection
  • Hypotactic (subordinate clauses)
  • You can phone the doctor if you like. However, I
    very much doubt whether he is in.
  • We live near the sea. So we enjoy a healthy
    climate.
  • Paratactic (coordinate clauses)
  • In Guangzhou it is hot and humid during the
    summer. In Beijing it is hot and dry.
  • He dictated the letter. She wrote it.
  • The door was open. He walked in.

76
7.2 Cohesion and cohesiveness
  • Cohesion is a concept to do with discourse or
    text rather than with syntax. It refers to
    relations of meaning that exist within the text,
    and defines it as a text.
  • Cohesiveness can be realized by employing various
    cohesive devices
  • conjunction
  • ellipsis
  • lexical collocation
  • lexical repetition
  • reference
  • substitution, etc.

COHESIVENESS
77
  • Did she get there at six?
  • No, (she got there) earlier (than six).
    (Ellipsis)
  • Shall we invite Bill?
  • No. 1 cant stand the man. (Lexical
    collocation)
  • He couldnt open the door. It was locked tight.
    (Reference)
  • Why dont you use your own recorder?
  • I don't have one. (Substitution)
  • I wanted to help him. Unfortunately it was too
    late. (Logical connection)

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