Syntactic Structures

Structures of Modication

 In English, words are combined into larger structures to convey more various meaning. Words can be lexical and functional. The combination of (no) more than two words will produce various structural meaning. The structures can be divided into four principal groups.

What are the four groups?

Hungry people Home town Easily superior As examples of structure of modification. it is formed by the combination of: A head + a modifier

Structure of Predication
Money talks Soldiers have been killed Snow kept falling It is formed by the combination of: A subject + a predicate

Structure of complementation
Speak truth Be careful Love your neighbour It is formed by the combination of: A verbal element + a complement

Structure of coordination
Pins and needles Hope and pray Neither war nor peace It is formed by the combination of: Equivalent grammatical units + function word

 These are the basic structures as the bases for more complex structures. They can be used as the main outlines and provide a framework of ideas and a basic terminology

These structures are based on:

1. English syntax is a many-layered organization of relatively few types of basic units 2. Every structure may be divided into its immediate consituents (ICs) and ten subdivided until the ultimate consituents

Structure of Modification
It consists of two components: Head + Modifier Possible meanings of modifier: - to broaden - to qualify - to select - to change - to describe - to affect the meaning of the head.

 The head can be: - noun - verb - adjective - adverb Unlike the head, the modifiers are limited

Noun as Head
The modifiers can be: 1. ADJECTIVE: good book great work remarkable tales The rule is: Adj + Noun Rarely Adjective follows the Noun (Noun + Adjective) in: - technical terms or quotations: court-martial, darkness visible - when adjectives is a part of a larger structure: a figure vague and shadowy, a man taller than I thought

2. Nouns: - in possessive: my fathers house meaning house of my father that womans doctor meaning doctor of that woman - in noun-adjuct: a father image meaning an image like father that woman doctor meaning that doctor who is a woman

Adjuncts
Post-head dependents which are not complements in a VP are adjuncts

Adjuncts are never obligatory

Adjuncts modify some aspect of the possible reference of the VP Different types of phrases can act as an adjunct in a VP (XP is an

abbreviation for an unspecified type of phrase)

Adjuncts can be fronted to pre-Subject

 Some characteristics of noun modifiers: 1. noun adjunct is almost always singular Ex.: dog days vs dogs life 2. Certain noun-determiners (this/these and that/those) exhibit the phenomenon of concord Ex.: that boys book = book of that boy that boys book = that book for boys those boys book = book of those boys those boys books = books of those boys those boys books= those books for boys 3. Most nonpersonal nouns do not have the (-s) inflection Ex.: communications officer, reparations agreement, 4. A few nouns have certain irregular forms which can help identify the possessive and plurality of the noun Ex.: woman doctor (noun adjunct) vs womans doctor (possessive) women doctors (noun adjunct) vs womens doctors (possessive)

Appositive
Appositive is a noun, noun-headed structure of modification, or a structure of coordination made up of nouns or noun-headed structures modifying a noun head which it follows. ex.: - His brother, a doctor, was there also - Mr. Jones, the art critic, praised the painting - The children, both boys and girls, received presents - the poet, Chaucer, - the product, cellophane, - Professor Jones - Vice-President Smith - The River Duddon

3. Verbs as modifiers verbs can function as modifiers in the following forms: - present participle (pre or post head) - past participle (pre or post head) - to infinitive (always post head)

Present/past participle modifiers

Pre-Head (if they are by-itself). Examples: - running water - baked potatoes Post-head (if they are parts of a larger structure) Examples: - water running in the street - potatoes baked slowly

To infinitives
Examples: - Money to burn - The man to see

What about the following: a. A pleasing table b. A rotting table c. A dining table Can you discriminate each of those?

4. Adverbs as Noun modifiers In English it seldom occurs as noun modifiers. If so, it occurs immediately after the noun modified. They are adverbs of then (today, daily, seldom, etc.) and there (outside, ahead, backward, etc.) groups. Example: - the people here - The temperature outside - Heavens above And the thus/so-class (easily, slowly, aloud, etc) groups only modify present participle verbs, such as his speaking rapidly, our acting together.

5. Prepositional Phrases as Noun modifiers This phrase consists of prepositions and lexical words. Preposition can be simple prepositions: one-morpheme preposition (after, as, at, etc), two-morpheme prepositions (about, above, across), and three-morpheme prepositions ( against, concerning, considering), compound prepositions (adverb+preposition) such as across from, along with, apart from, and phrasal prepositions (simple preposition, a noun, and another simple preposition) such as in regard to, in spite of, by means of, etc.

 Example of Prepositional phrase as modifiers: - a way of doing - a mile from here - a book from under the table

Verbs as the Heads

Head: V Dependents:
Pre-head modifier: AdvP Post-head modifier: AdvP/PP (Post-head) complement: NP/PP/AdvP/clause

S
Subject:NP Tense:AUX Predicate:VP head:V PtHdMod:AdvP The boy has S Subject:NP Tense:AUX Predicate:VP PrHdMod:AdvP The boy has very quickly V run run very quickly

Adjective as the Head

Head Dependents:

Prehead Modifier (PrHdMod)

Posthead Complement (Comp)

AdjP
PrHdMod:AdvP Head:Adj Comp:PP

so very improbably

keen crazy

on that movie about that movie

Adverb as the Head

head: Adv dependents: prehead modifier: AdvP posthead complement: PP / clause more so very carefully quickly than Jo that he fell over

quickly
PrHdMod: AdvP Head: Adv

*than Jo/ that he fell over

Comp: PP/Clause

Preposition as the Head

head: P

Prehead modifier: AdvP

Posthead complement: NP/PP PP PrHdMod:AdvP Head:P Comp:NP

straight
almost right barely

though
into in

the intersection
the crowd the water

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