SYNTAX - phrase and sentence formation

SENTENCE - has been defined in over 200 ways:

1. Emotive sentences: Gee! Wow. Darn! Yes! No!

2. Imperatives: Go! Leave! Taxi! All aboard! Down with

alcohol!

3. Elliptic sentences: Who took the car? John.

4. Small talk phrases: Hello. Good-bye. Good morning.

Our definition: a SENTENCE has a subject and a predicate.

Types of sentences containing a subject and a predicate

1. Simple sentence contains at least one subject and one predicate:

We // see the cat. John // picked flowers.

The man with the green golf club // left.

2. Compound sentence: two or more simple sentences joined

together:

We see the cat // (and) you see a dog.

(and, but,. or = coordinating conjunctions)

3. Complex sentence: one of the syntactic roles is played by an

embedded sentence:

I made // the students read Chomsky.

I saw // Mary run.

I know //(that) you snore

main clause//subordinate clause, or imbedded sentence S' (S-

bar)

that = subordinating conjunction, or complementizer (comp)

Parts of speech -syntactic classes of words: verb (V) noun
(N) adjective (Adj) adverb (adv) pronoun (Pron)
preposition (P) conjunction (Conj: and, but, if),

article (Art: a, the), verbal particle (off in turn off the light).

Distinguishing between a verbal particle and a

preposition.

1. Fronting (Prepositional phrases can be fronted, verbal

particles cannot):

The mouse ran up the clock--Up the clock he ran.

The man ran up a big bill.--*Up the big bill he ran.

The asterisk * marks ill-formed (ungrammatical) examples

2. "It" test:

The mouse ran up it (the clock). but not *The mouse ran it up.

The man ran it up (a bill). but not *The man ran up it.

Not all languages have the same parts of speech.

Parts of speech have no real world meaning.

The sky darkens, the darkening of the sky, a dark sky,

the darkness of the sky.

Syntactic patterns and categories are not limited semantically.

Noam Chomsky: Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.

*green sleep colorless furiously ideas.

Syntactic atom - the basic unit of syntax

Phrase structure rules: express syntactic equivalence

S -> NP (subject) + VP
(predicate)
NP -> Pron He ate the bone.
NP -> N Fido ate the bone.
NP -> Art. + N The dog ate the bone.
NP -> Art.+Adj.+N The big yellow dog ate the bone.
Our dog which we raised from a
NP -> Adj.+N+S'
puppy ate the bone.
VP -> V He slept.
VP -> V + NP He made a kite.
VP -> V + PP He looked at us.
VP -> V + NP + PP He made a kite at school.
PP -> P + NP

Recursion: the ability of a syntactic element to repeat in the

same structure:

Recursive, or parallel, NP Subjects:

John arrived. John and Mary arrived, John, Bill and Mary
arrived.

Recursive, or parallel VP Predicates

John worked. John worked and sang. John worked, sang and
ate.

Recursive modifiers (adjectives)

bad car bad red car big bad red car big bad rusty old red car

Some items cannot be recursive:

articles not recursive: the book *the a the book

conjunctions not recursive: John and Mary *John and or if

Mary

19th century German linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt:

"Language makes infinite use of finite means."

. The declarative sentence

A declarative sentence describes a grammatical structure that is used, mainly, to

tell what someone or something is, or is being or doing.

.g. ' I sat down.'

2. The interrogative sentence

An interrogative sentence is a different structure. It requires the use of an

auxiliary verb (' do' or ' can' , for example) before the subject. This grammatical
structure is usually used to create a question:

e.g. ' Can I sit down?'

3. The imperative sentence

An imperative sentence has no obvious subject and is used to give a command or

order (the subject, although missing, is easily inferred as "You' ):

e.g. ' Sit down!'

. The exclamatory sentence

An exclamatory sentence is a grammatical structure that uses a wh- word to create

an exclamation:

' What a racket in here!'

The declarative sentence

A declarative sentence is the basic sentence structure we use in English and the first
a child is able to learn. It is often used when we want to make a statement. Its
structure is always subject-verb-object or SVO.

SUBJECT (S) VERB (V) OBJECT (O)

Noun phrase Verb / verb chain Noun phrase

the 'actor' the 'action' the 'acted upon'

 The cat ate the mouse

The interrogative sentence

An interrogative sentence has a different grammatical structure. It needs an
auxiliary verb to be placed before the subject - which splits the verb chain. It is
usually used to create a question. Here is an example:

VERB (V) SUBJECT (S) VERB (V) OBJECT

auxiliary verb noun main verb Noun phrase

Do you want any?

The imperative sentence

An imperative sentence lacks a subject. This has the effect of adding an insistent
quality to the sentence (notice that the subject is, in fact, an implied, 'you'):

VERB (V) OBJECT (O)

verb noun

Sit down.

(Note that grammar sets the rules for structure to allow clear
meaning. But we can use grammatical structures for more than
one kind of meaning. For example, an interrogative structure,
which is usually used for making a question, can also form of
command: 'Can you pass the sugar, please?' is an interrogative
but has the meaning of a command: 'Pass the sugar.'
 Similarly a declarative structure such as, 'You want a drink?' is
really functioning as a question. We are able to work out the
meaning because of the context in which the sentence is used by
the process of pragmatics.

Declarative sentences

When the main verb needs an object, the structure is always SVO:

The cat caught a mouse

SUBJECT (S) VERB (V) OBJECT (O)

Noun phrase Verb phrase (i.e. also called the predicate)

When the verb needs two objects, the structure is SVOO:

I gave Sally a present

SUBJECT (S) VERB (V) OBJECT (O) OBJECT (O)

INDIRECT OBJECT
DIRECT OBJECT (DO)
(IO)

Noun phrase Verb phrase (i.e. predicate)

When the verb takes a complement, the structure is SVC:

I feel ill

SUBJECT (S) VERB (V) COMPLEMENT (C)

And when the verb is complete with only its subject, the structure is SV:
 The animal died

SUBJECT (S) VERB (V)

Noun phrase Verb phrase (or predicate)

Main clause or sentence.

It is useful to begin a grammatical analysis of any sentence by identifying its main

clause(s).

• This sentence will serve as the example we will use for our analysis:

The drunken young man slipped awkwardly into a ditch

although he seemed unhurt.

• Can you identify the main clause in the above sentence?

• Remember that only a compound sentence contains more than a single

main clause.

Next, try to identify the subject of the main clause (remembering that this is usually
a noun phrase placed next to a verb or verb chain).

• Can you identify the subject of the main clause?

The drunken young man slipped awkwardly into a ditch

although he seemed unhurt.

• The main clause in the above sentence is: The drunken young man
slipped awkwardly into a ditch.
• The subject of the clause is a noun phrase: The drunken young man.
Notice that the subject of the main clause is, as is often the case, not a single word
but a phrase with a noun as its head word.

• The head word of the noun phrase The drunken young man is the
noun, man.

Once you have located the subject, it is then easy to locate the verb. This is a word
or phrase that is linked to the subject - it tells what the subject is doing or being and
usually follows it; in the above sentence, the verb is in the past tense: slipped.

Generally speaking, many English sentences tell about someone doing

something to someone else. These three key parts are filled by the
grammatical subject, its accompanying finite verb or verb chain or phrase
and the grammatical object of the sentence.

• This common syntactic construction is often labelled by linguists: SVO

VERB TYPES

Look at these four sentences:

1. The boy is playing.

The verb in this sentence is composed of more than one word and so is
called a verb chain: is playing. This word group tells what the
grammatical subject, a noun phrase, The boy (with the head word
of the noun phrase being boy), is doing.

• Notice that in this use of the verb 'play', the meaning of is

playing is complete without any object being needed.
• Verbs that make sense without needing an object are called
intransitive verbs.
• This means no action is being transferred from the subject to an
object.
 2. The boy is playing a guitar.
Here, the verb chain is playing is made complete by an object. Verbs
that need an object to be complete in their meaning are called
transitive verbs. Action is transferred from the subject to the object.
The object - the thing that directly takes the action of the verb - is
always a noun or noun phrase; it is sometimes referred to as the
verb's direct object.

• If you look at the verb chain 'is playing', you can see that it
could exist alone, without an object.
• This shows that some verbs can be both transitive or intransitive
according to how they function in their sentence.

3. The boy gave his friend the guitar.

Here the verb has two objects: friend and guitar. This is more
unusual in English. One object (called the direct object) takes the
direct action of the verb (the guitar) and the other object (called the
indirect object) is not directly affected by the verb but is the receiver
of something from the action (his friend). Compare:

She gave me a present for my birthday.

4. The boy is a good guitar player.

Here, the verb 'is' acts only to link its subject, The boy to a phrase
that does no more than add more detail to the subject, a good guitar
player.

• Words that add detail to the subject in this way are called the
verb's complement.
• Verbs such as is (there are a very few others, e.g. are, appear,
seem) are called a copula or a linking verb.

• Can you think up more examples of each type of verb (transitive and
intransitive)?
 • Put each of your verbs into sentences and label each part correctly.
o You will find that some verbs can be either transitive or
intransitive depending on the context of their sentence.

• Can you think of any other verbs that take two objects - a direct and
an indirect object?

The drunken young man slipped awkwardly into a ditch

although he seemed unhurt.

Written in its simplest form this sentence could be a much shorter main clause:

The man slipped.

What kind of sentence has this now become: simple, compound or complex?

The man slipped.

It is a simple sentence as it contains only one subject (The man) and

one main verb (slipped).

Is it now a declarative, interrogative, imperative or exclamatory structure?

The man slipped.

It is still a declarative sentence because it makes a statement -

it tells about the subject, The man.

Now convert this into:

• a) An interrogative structure.
• b) A (very unlikely!) imperative.

The man slipped.

 The purpose of any sentence is to communicate meaning. To do this
more precisely, grammar needs to allow for a noun to be modified
by other forms of grammatical structures to enable communication
to be more precise.

One way to achieve this is to choose a more precise word, e.g. 'youth' however, in
the above sentence, this is not done. Instead, more detail is provided about the noun
- is meaning has been modified:

The drunken young man slipped.

This extra detail is said to modify the noun: here, three extra words have achieved
this: The + drunken + young.

Three main types of words can modify nouns: adjectives, determiners or

prepositional phrases.

• These can precede the noun they modify as in The drunken young man - as
a pre-modifier.
• They can be placed after their noun to post-modify it, as in "The drunken
young man with an ice cream...'.
• A prepositional phrase can also act as a 'post-modifier', e.g. 'The man in a
drunken state...'
• Prepositional phrases are common modifiers - sometimes occurring to excess.

Count the number of prepositional phrases in this sentence taken from Graham
Swift's satirical story, "Gulliver's Travels' (the prepositions have been highlighted)
which of these are post-modifying a noun?

'It would not be proper, for some reasons, to trouble the

reader with the particulars of our adventures in those
seas: let it suffice to inform him, that in our passage
from thence to the East Indies, we were driven by a
violent storm to the North-West of Van Diemen’s Land.'
DETERMINERS AND ARTICLES
One other kind of important kind of modifier is called a determiner. These are small
words that are placed at the beginning of a noun phrase, e.g. 'Those old men cried'
and act to limit the noun in some way.

There are also two kinds of what are termed articles: the indefinite article, 'a' or
'an' and the definite article, 'the'.

Note that whilst determiners, adjectives and prepositional phrases are the most
usual ways to modify a noun to create a noun phrase, some other word-classes can
act as modifiers, most commonly, other nouns and some non-finite forms of verbs:

The camera man... (noun)

The clicking camera man... (-ing verb form)
The photographed man...(-ed verb form)

Remember that the noun, acting as head word of the phrase, together with
all of its modifiers is called a noun phrase (NP) and will always take the
position of either the subject or object of a verb with which it is linked.

grammar - the phrase revisited

You have seen that the phrase is an important grammatical

structure. Undoubtedly, if you can recognise the phrases within the
sentences of your texts you have the basis for some useful
comments.

A good knowledge of phrases will enable you to make useful and

subtle comments on the style of the sentences within a text. And
subtlety gains marks!

A phrase is a group of words that acts to provide a unit of meaning. Some linguists
label single units of meaning as a phrase whether it is composed of one or more
words.
 • In the following, both 'the cat' and 'with what looked like a mouse' are
phrases:

The cat was playing with what looked like a mouse.

Phrases are a kind of building block of clauses and sentences.

• A phrase cannot contain both a subject and a verb: it then is called a

clause.

There are several kinds of phrase, each being labelled according to the kind of head
word it contains:

• A phrase is composed of either a single head word or a head word with

other words that modify it.

• A phrase containing a noun as its head word is called a noun phrase

o e.g. The drunken young man

• A main verb is often found with one or more auxiliary verbs with which it
forms what linguists call a verb chain; some linguists call a verb chain
followed by any adverbial structure that modifies it, a verb phrase
o e.g. The vegetables had been cooked for far too long.

Here are some noun phrases. They could function as either the complement,
subject or object of a verb:

The drunken A pink-coloured

The scruffy cat The evil witch
young man balloon

What are the head words of each noun phrase?

Here are some verb chains:

was walking had been did mean might have

 swimming been going

Again, can you identify the head words of each? The head word is called the
main verb, other verbs that are part of the verb chain are called 'auxiliary
verbs'.

grammar - more on modification

To make meaning clearer, not only nouns can be modified.

• To modify other parts of a sentence apart from nouns - or even to

modify the sentence as a whole - requires the use of adverbs and
adverbial phrases.
• These act to give more information about the time, place or manner
of the action told of by the verb.

The drunken young man slipped awkwardly into a ditch

although he seemed unhurt.

How did the man slip?

He slipped... awkwardly into a ditch.

A word that adds detail to the action told by the verb is called an adverb not
surprisingly, if it is a phrase, it is called an adverbial phrase.

• These structures are sometimes put under a single heading of

adverbials.
• The group of words that includes the verb + adverbial phrase slipped
awkwardly into a ditch is also often labelled as a verb phrase.

Notice that the sentence above contains two adverbials - the adverb, awkwardly
which tells about the manner of the action and the prepositional phrase, into a
ditch which tells about the place of the action.
 • Labelling the whole unit a verb phrase makes learning rather easier!

grammar - yet more on modification

You will have gathered that modification is a frequent aspect of English sentences. As
it occurs so often, you will need to understand it in more detail. Let's look again at
our sentence:

The drunken young man slipped awkwardly into a ditch

although he seemed unhurt.

Remember that adverbial phrases are those parts of a sentence that give extra
detail mostly to the verb and usually concerning time, place or manner.

In the above sentence:

• 'Awkwardly' tells of manner - it modifies the verb 'slipped' giving extra detail
about how the action occurred
• 'Into a ditch' tells of place - again, it modifies the verb, 'slipped' giving detail
about where the action occurred
• And... the adverb 'yesterday' could easily have been added to the sentence
to tell more about when the action occurred.

[To add a level of complexity not really needed for your course, you might have
noticed that many adverbial phrases are made from prepositional phrases.

• There are over sixty prepositions in English, e.g. 'into', 'on', 'outside', 'over',
'through', 'by', etc. Each of these can be used to introduce a noun or noun
phrase to create an adverbial phrase that gives detail about 'where', 'when'
and 'how' an action occurred.

• Prepositional phrases can also be used as adjectives when they post-

modify a noun or noun phrase, e.g. The school is in a bad state.]

grammar - returning to the clause

 The drunken young man slipped awkwardly into a ditch
although he seemed unhurt.

When analysing the grammar of a sentence, you will have seen how important it is
to be sensitive to the individual word groups from which the sentence is constructed.

• These word-groups are coherent units of meaning called phrases;

• But there is a larger word-group that you will have noticed in longer
sentences. These are called clauses.
• Like a phrase, a clause is a word group - but it consists of at least two
phrases, one being, usually, a noun phrase acting as the subject and
accompanied by a verb or verb chain.
• An analysis of the above sentence will reveal that it consists of two clauses,
and within each clause, several phrases, from which the two clauses are
built. The two clauses are:

The drunken young man slipped awkwardly into a ditch...

...although he seemed unhurt.

Neither of these smaller groups is a sentence in its own right (although, clearly, the
first word group could have been. Yet both groups contain a subject and verb
chain combination.

• You will remember that this means neither can be called a phrase; they are
both clauses.

Let's look more closely at the first word group or clause:

The drunken young man slipped awkwardly into a ditch...

The part of a sentence that tells about its main subject - and what this subject is
either being or doing - is called the main clause.
 A main clause that is a sentence on its own is called an independent
clause.

But what about the second clause in this sentence?

...although he seemed unhurt.

If you think about it, this clause could not stand alone as a sentence because of the
word 'although'. Its function is not to be a sentence but to 'help out' the main clause:
it expands the detail given in the main clause.

• A clause that extends a main clause but which depends on it for its full
meaning is called a dependent or subordinate clause.

We make a dependent clause by introducing it with a subordinating

conjunction. There are many of these conjunctions, e.g. if, when,
where, unless.

RELATIVE CLAUSES
A special kind of dependent or subordinate clause acts as an
adjective, that is, its function is to modify a noun or noun phrase.

• These clauses are called relative clauses because their

information relates to a particular noun or noun phrase within
their sentence and adds extra detail to it.
• Relative clauses are most often introduced by one of three so-
called relative pronouns: who, which, that...

The man, who was far too young to have been drinking so
heavily, slipped awkwardly into the road.
To recap...

1. A main clause is a syntactical structure or sentence element that could exist

as a separate sentence; if it were a sentence in its own right, it would be called an
independent clause:

The drunken young man slipped awkwardly into a ditch.

2. A clause that acts only to extend the meaning - and is dependent on - a main
clause is called a subordinate or dependent clause:

...although he seemed unhurt.

3. A special type of subordinate clause is a relative clause; this relates to and adds
extra information to a noun or noun phrase.

grammar - verb tense, voice, aspect and mood

Verbs and verb chains are able to provide a good deal of extra information
about their subject without the need for modification.

The drunken young man slipped awkwardly into a ditch

although he seemed unhurt.

VERB TENSE
A verb or verb chain can give an idea about the time of its action and
whether the action occurred before or after another action in the sentence.
This is achieved by the way the verbs in the sentence are 'marked' to show
tense.

In the sentence above slipped and seemed are said to be 'marked' for past tense
by being grammatically inflected by the suffix '-ed'. Here are two other ways that
verbs can show the time of an action:

The drunken young man will slip into the ditch.

The drunken young man slips into the ditch.
VERB VOICE
Verbs can be used with what are called different voices. There are two voices called
active and passive. If a verb is in the active voice, the grammatical subject
performs its action:

The cat chased the mouse.

Here is the same sentence in the passive voice:

The mouse was chased by the cat.

• Can you see how an active sentence is turned into a passive?

In the second sentence, the object now occupies the position of the grammatical
subject (which is now called the agent or logical subject). Importantly, in a
passive construction the agency of the sentence becomes less clear and can even
be removed completely:

• Consider these active and passive sentences. What happens to the

meaning they create?

PC Smith arrested the criminal.

The criminal was arrested by PC Smith.

The criminal was arrested.

• Your turn! Create three new pairs of active and passive sentences of
your own.
o What is the effect on the meaning, especially the emphasis
each gives to the agency of the sentence?
• Look in any edition of a daily newspaper, especially at the headlines.
Can you spot any passive constructions? Why do you think passives
are common in journalism?
VERB ASPECT and MOOD
The action of a verb may be complete (this is called 'perfect') or incomplete
(this is called 'progressive', 'continuous' or 'imperfect').

• This is shown through what is called the 'aspect' of the verb.

• It is created by adding auxiliary verbs (i.e. helper verbs to make a
verb chain) or by the use of inflections (i.e. changes to the
morphology of the verb).

Look at these two sentences:

The cat sat on the mat.

The cat was sitting on the mat.

In the second, the continuous aspect of the verb is shown by the inflection -ing and
suggests that the action continued over a period of time.

MOOD - MODAL VERBS

Another important aspect of a verb is to be able to show that an action only

potential.

• This aspect is shown by using modality.

• A modal auxiliary is used to suggest this:

The drunken young man could have slipped awkwardly into a

ditch.
The young man might have had one too many.
The drunken young man should not have been drinking.

grammar - a quick test

You have now covered many important aspects of English grammar. The most
important for your course are, perhaps, the following:

• Sentence elements - words, phrases and clauses, their different types

and uses.
• Sentence modification - use of determiners, adjectives, relative
clauses, adverbs, adverbials and prepositional phrases.
• Verbs and verb chains - tense, aspect, and voice.

But grammar is a whole lot more than this you have skimmed only the surface. In
the library, there is an excellent book that will help you further. It is called
'Rediscover Grammar' by David Crystal.

A good reference book for your course is also by David Crystal it is called, 'The
Cambridge Encyclopaedia of the English Language' and covers every aspect of your
course in immense detail again, you will find it in the school library.

FEEL READY FOR A QUICK TEST TO FLEX YOUR NEW GRAMMATICAL

MUSCLES? SCROLL DOWN...

Look at the following sentence...

'The ancient document, which was clearly written with a particularly

fine hand and which was the result of much reflection and hard work,

was something of great value - a value that simply could not be

accounted for in cash alone.'

• What kind of sentence is this?

• What is its function?

• What is its main clause - what it is basically all about?

• What is the phrase that forms the subject of this main clause - what it

mainly concerns?
 • What is the head word in the subject phrase?

• How many adjectives are there in the sentence?

• How many adverbs are there in the sentence?

• There are three relative clauses in the sentence. Can you spot each

one?

• There is a 'copula' or 'linking verb' in the main clause. Which is it?

• How many 'adverbials' can you find? These are all prepositional

phrases some acting to post-modify a noun or verb.

grammar - how did you do?

'The ancient document, which was clearly written with a particularly fine
hand and which was the result of much reflection and hard work, was
something of great value - a value that simply could not be accounted for in
cash alone.'

What kind of sentence is this?

o It is a complex sentence because it contains two types of

clause.

What is its function?

o It is a declarative sentence.

What is its main clause - what it is, at heart, saying?

o 'The document was something of great value'.

What is the subject of the main clause - the thing it tells about, at heart?

o The noun phrase: 'the ancient document'.

What is the head word in the subject?

 o The noun, 'document', part of the noun phrase 'The ancient
document'.

How many adjective words are there?

o Four adjectives have been used: 'ancient', 'fine', 'hard', 'great'.

How many adverb words are there?

o There are three adverbs: 'clearly', 'particularly', 'simply'.

There are three relative clauses in the sentence. Can you spot each one?

o 'which was clearly written with a particularly fine hand'

o 'which was the result of much reflection and hard work'
o 'a value that simply could not be accounted for in cash alone'

There is a 'copula' or 'linking verb' in the main clause. Which is it?

o 'was'

How many 'adverbials' can you find? These are all prepositional phrases
some acting to post-modify a noun, some to modify a verb.

o 'with a particularly fine hand'

o 'of much reflection and hard work'
o 'of great value'
o 'in cash alone'

grammar ...the end!

Phew! You've reached the final page. Are you a grammar expert yet?

Well, don't worry if the grammar of real sentences often loses you. In real
speech and writing, rather than the kinds of rather artificial examples used
in these web pages, grammar can become amazingly complex and difficult
to explain.
 • But it can still be reasonably straightforward to carry out a basic
grammatical analysis such as counting up the individual phrases
within a sentence.
• This is particularly useful when deciding on the complexity or
formality of the grammar of a sentence.

Here is the sentence you have been analysing over the past few web pages.
It has been broken down into each of its grammatical elements. Breaking
down a sentence grammatically is sometimes called parsing a sentence...

The drunken young man slipped awkwardly into a ditch

although he seemed unhurt.

MAIN CLAUSE
The drunken young man slipped awkwardly into a ditch...

subject (S) verb (V) adverbials (A)

determiner pre- pre-

verb adverbial
(definite modifier modifier noun adverb
(intransitive) phrase
article) (adjective) (adjective)

into a
The drunken young man slipped awkwardly
ditch

noun phrase verb phrase

SUBORDINATE CLAUSE
...although he seemed unhurt.

subject (S) verb (V) complement (C)

subordinating intransitive finite

pronoun post-modifier
conjunction verb

although he seemed unhurt

noun phrase verb phrase

 A final and important reminder...

Remember to comment on the grammar within the sentences of a text only

if, by doing so, you feel you are commenting on an important aspect of the
writer or speaker's choices of style.

A discussion of grammar for its own sake will gain no marks at all. Here are
just three examples where, for your course, grammar will prove very useful.
There are many more!

• In language change (A2) you will generally find that syntax has simplified
over the years.
• In language change also, you will find that morphology has changed over the
years.
• In language acquisition, you will find children unable to use complicated
syntax at an early age.