Lesson 4

The Structure of English Syntax

So far this course has concentrated on isolated words in the language but now we shall turn to
words in combination. The main emphasis of this module will be on the level of language that examines
how words combine into larger units. British linguists often use the term ‘grammar’ for the same level of
language that is referred to as ‘syntax’ by many Americans.
This module shall study only three of these units—the phrase, the clause and the sentence. In
studying the structure of English syntax, we will adopt adopt what may be called an “enlightened”
traditional approach (Kortmann, 2020). This means that we will for the most part use the traditional, long
established terminology (some of which is over two thousand years old), but in a critically reflected way,
i. e. including the scientific insights and developments of recent research in the field of grammar. This
approach is particularly suitable for teaching (foreign) languages at schools, colleges and universities; it is
therefore the approach preferred for the linguistic training of future foreign-language teachers.
First, let us discuss the three different meanings of the term grammar:
Grammar: Leaving aside grammar as language theory, the term grammar can usually mean three different
things:
■ the study of the rule-based structure (or: the ground plan) of a language
■ the object of study itself, i. e. the system of rules according to which a given language may combine
words and the morphemes they consist of into larger units
■ the book in which these rules are formulated and described
Syntax is traditionally defined as that branch of linguistics which studies the structure of sentences.
As human beings, one of our most defining and distinguishing features is our ability to use language.
Scientists believe that if we are able to fully understand the mystery of our ability to use language, we will
be able to know and understand a lot about how our mind works, as language is considered one of our
primary means of cognition. Indeed, one of the most remarkable aspects of human language is our ability
to build up larger units from smaller components. Thus we get words from sounds and sentences from
words, etc. This is a unique ability only found in the human communication system vis-à-vis all other
communication systems. However, everything in language is rule-governed, even the exceptions. Thus, we
cannot randomly assemble a set of sounds and declare it to be a word. There are rules that govern which
sounds come in the company of which other sounds. So also, we cannot just randomly pick a set of words,
put them together and declare it to be a sentence. When we say that syntax studies the structure of sentences,
we have already assumed that all sentences have a structure, and are not just a random string of words.
What do we mean when we say that all sentences have a structure? The word ‘structure’ implies one of the
two things below:

 something that has been made or built up of parts,

 the way in which the parts of a system or object are arranged or organized. (Cambridge Advanced
Learners Dictionary, 3rd edition, 2008)
Based on this understanding of structure, when we say that we study the structure of sentences in syntax,
we study both:

 the parts from which sentences are built, and

  the way in which the parts of a sentence are arranged or organized.
We will focus on both these aspects of sentential structure in this module. Let us begin with an example.
Look at the sentence below:
a. The last batsman scored the only century in an otherwise forgettable match.
That this sentence is made up of words is not a remarkable information. What is indeed remarkable is that
this is not a mere random string of words. We can understand this if we were to just jumble up the words
to get something like the sentence
b. * Batsman otherwise scored match the the an in forgettable only last century.
The use of the asterisk (*) is a convention in linguistics to mark ungrammatical sentences. The above sentence is
clearly ungrammatical and almost impossible to understand or interpret. Yet, it clearly uses the same set of words as
our earlier grammatical sentence (a). Therefore, knowing the structure of sentences in a language means that we have
to know the order in which words appear in a sentence.

Moreover, since the number of sentences in a language is infinite, we do not have rules for each
sentence separately but all sentences are formed from a general set of rules. If we look at sentence (a) again,
while the kind of jumbling as we saw in (b) made the sentence absolutely nonsensical, there are certain
groups of words that can be moved around and still keep the sentence grammatical and meaningful. So, it
is possible to move around some words and get the following sentences, which are all perfectly grammatical
as well as meaningful:
c. The only century was scored by the last batsman, in an otherwise forgettable match.
d. In an otherwise forgettable match, the only century was scored by the last batsman.
e. In an otherwise forgettable match, the last batsman scored the only century.
Are you now wondering why, the kind of jumbling of words we did in (b) produce an absolutely
uninterpretable sentence, while the kind of jumbling/movement of words we performed in (c), (d) and (e)
resulted in grammatical sentences? What did we do different in (c), (d) and (e) in contrast to what we did
in (b)? Can you also think of at least two different ways in which you can move the words of the following
sentence and still produce grammatical sentences?
f. The new store manager hid the advertising manuals because of the increasing crowds of people.
If you have been successful in moving things around in the above sentence and still have
grammatical sentences, you have already understood what we had done differently in (c), (d) and (e) vis-à-
vis in (b). Instead of randomly moving every word, we only moved words in larger groups: ‘the only
century”, “the last batsman” and “in an otherwise forgettable match”. We are sure you also did the same
with (f). This grouping of words into what are called “phrases” is an important aspect of the
organization/structure of sentences.
Structure of a Sentence Phrases
Sentences are formed of words, but before these words become a sentence, they are first grouped
into meaningful groups called “phrases”. What are phrases made up of? What kinds of phrases do we
generally have in languages?
Phrases are made up of a group of words that come together to modify the meaning of a head word.
In linguistics, we use the term “modify” to mean “add something to the meaning” or to make the meaning
of a word more specific. To give you an example of what we mean by modification, let us take a noun,
shirt. If we add an adjective before this noun to make it green shirt, we say that green modifies the meaning
of shirt. Of all the millions of possible shirts that shirt could refer to, the addition of the modifier green now
limits which shirts could be referred to, that is only green shirts. Now, we may not be interested in talking
about all the green shirts in the world but a particular one. We do that by adding another modifier the and
get the green shirt. What the does to the expression green shirt is to limit which green shirts could be
referred to according to the context. So, from a very generic meaning/ reference of a noun shirt we arrive
at a very specific reference with the help of the modifiers. Thus, in a sequence like “The green shirt looked
very dirty”, we can clearly see that the words the and green have more to do with shirt than with looked,
dirty or very. Similarly, the word very has more to do with dirty than looked, the, green, or, shirt. Thus, we
can see that words that may look like just a linear sequence are actually internally organized into
smaller groups which come together to form a sentence. These groups of words that act like a single unit
are what we have referred to as phrases.
Traditional Definition of Phrase
For our purpose, we can define a phrase as a group of words which functions as a unit and, with the
exception of the verb phrase itself, does not contain a finite verb.
Definition of finite verb
There are two types of verbs: finite verbs and non-finite verbs.
Traditionally speaking, verbs marked for tense, person and number. The term finite derives from the Latin
word ‘finitus’, the past passive participle of ‘finire’ which means ‘to limit’, from the same root as ‘finis’
which means ‘a boundary limit.’
Thus, the finite form of the verb is a label attached to a verb that is limited in time by a tense, and also
shows agreement with grammatical number and person. Since it carries tense markings, it is also known as
tensed form or tense verb.
In the grammatical categorization of the English verb phrase, the finite verb is the form which is marked
for tense, and matched for singular number with a third person subject in the present or past tense (e.g. She
touch-ed the elephant). Such verb forms are thus ‘finite’ in that they refer to an event which is related to a
moment of time (Katie Wales).
For Example:
He goes away, laughing,
Analysis: ‘goes’ shows tense (present simple) and number and person (he) whereas ‘laughing’ shows
neither.
Analysis: Yesterday he went fishing, but today he is staying at home.
went shows tense while is shows tense (present) and agreement in person and number
The underlying metaphor is that, for example, the Latin infinitive form currere ‘to run’ denotes running
without any limitations, whereas finite forms such as currebam run-pst-1sg ‘I was running’ tie the event
down to a (general) time and to a certain participant or to certain participants (Brown & Miller, 2013)
Focusing on tense feature, the forms of a verb that vary for present tense and past tense are called finite.
Hence finite verbs are sometimes called ‘tensed’ verbs. Both auxiliaries and main verbs have finite forms
(see Table 2).
Focusing on other grammatical features, finite verbal forms are those which can show formal contrast of:

Tense past and present

Number singular and plural
Person first, second and third
Mood indicative, imperative and subjunctive

Summary of Finite-Non-Finite Verb Distinction

Verbs that carry tense, and by extension the *verb phrases (1/2), *clauses, and *sentences that contain them,
can be described as finite. The third person singular present tense -s form (e.g. looks, sees) is always
finite, as is the simple past form (e.g. looked, saw), whereas the present participle in -ing (e.g. looking,
seeing) and the past participle in - ed/-en (e.g. looked, seen) are *non-finite. The base form (e.g. look,
see) can be either. It is finite as a present tense form (e.g. I see the coastline), but non-finite as an infinitive
(e.g. I can see the coastline). There is disagreement as to whether the base form in the *imperative (e.g.
Stay here!) and the *subjunctive (e.g. The boss insists that she stay late) is finite or non-finite, though most
accounts opt for the former view. Although we speak of finite verb phrases, it is in fact only the first verb
in a finite verb phrase that is finite, e.g.
We have been wondering
It may be being changed.
Problem with Finite Verbs in English
These markings are numerous and easily recognized in languages such as Russian, Italian and written
French, but rare in English. English, with its sparse inflectional morphology, is not the ideal language for
illustrating the distinction between finite and non-finite verb-forms, but consider these examples: “Susie
smokes”, “Susie enjoys smoking”, “Susie started to smoke when she was fifteen”. Here smokes, enjoys and
started (and also was) are finite forms, while smoking and smoke are non-finite. The problem with English
is that finite and non-finite forms are often identical: in Most of my friends smoke, the verb smoke is
finite, but in Most of my friends don’t smoke, the form smoke is non-finite (the finite form here is the do of
don't). As mentioned earlier, although we speak of finite verb phrases such as don’t smoke, it is in fact only
the first verb in a finite verb phrase that is finite, the second verb smoke is non-finite.
The base form of a verb (such as smoke) is finite when it is used as a present tense form, but non-finite
when it is used as an infinitive (to smoke). Similarly, the -ed form of regular verbs (smoke) is finite when
it is used as a past tense form (smoked) and non-finite when it is used as an -ed participle (past participle)
(has/have smoked). Modal auxiliaries (for example, can, could, may, might, must) can be considered finite
verbs, even though some of them lack a past tense form.
In some recent work in linguistics the idea that verb forms are finite or non-finite has been abandoned.
Instead, finiteness is regarded as a property of higher-order units such as clauses.

Non-finite Verb
So-called non-finite verb forms in English are not marked in this way, and comprise infinitives (touch; hate,
etc.) and participles (touch-ing; touch-ed; eat-en).
non-finite verb A verb form which is not finite, that is does not involve variation for past tense and present
tense. non-finite. A non-finite verb is unrestricted in the temporal period that it can refer to, and is thus
generally untensed. More generally, a non-finite verb cannot stand alone as the main verb in a sentence.
The three nonfinite verb forms are (a) the infinitive, with or without to, (b) the -ing form (often called
present participle or gerund) and (c) the -ed form (past participle):

(a) (to) be (b) being (c) been

(to) eat eating eaten
(to) live living lived

All verbs, except for modal auxiliaries, have non-finite forms. Non-finite forms always follow the finite
verb form (if any) in the verb phrase: will be, is eating, has lived, has been living, will be eating and so on.
Such verb phrases are called finite because they begin with the finite verb form.
Those which can’t show these contrasts are termed nonfinite. This means that participle forms - the present
participle, or ‘ing’ form, and the past participle, or ‘en’ form- are always non-finite, because they are not
able to indicate them. As a consequence, when they occur in an independent SENTENCE or main CLAUSE
they must always be preceded by one or more auxiliary verbs. It is these which carry the burden of indicating
tense, number, person, and mood, not the participle.
Let’s go back now to the definition of phrase. Consider the above definition by examining the sentence
below:
The little boy sat in the corner.
we can replace ‘the little boy’ by ‘He’ and ‘in the corner’ by ‘there’. Notice that in both examples we replace
a number of words by one. Similarly, if we ask: ‘Who sat in the corner?’ the answer will be ‘The little boy’
or if we ask: ‘Where did he sit?’ we will be told ‘In the corner’. It is thus clear that certain groups of words
have internal coherence in that they function as a unit.
Five Common Types of English Phrase
There are five commonly occurring types of phrase in English: noun phrases, adjective phrases, verb
phrases, adverb phrases and preposition phrases. The type/kind of phrase is determined by which word is
considered the head word, which is then said to be modified by the others in the phrase. In the example, the
green shirt, it is clearly shirt which is the head word, or simply the head. Since the head of this phrase is a
noun, this phrase is a Noun Phrase, or in short an NP.
1. Noun Phrase
A noun phrase is a group of words with a noun as its headword. There can be up to three noun phrases in a
simple sentence, as the underlined units in the following simple sentences show:

1 2 3
The young man threw the old dog a bone.
 1 2 3
That rich man will build his eldest daughter a fine house.

2. Adjective Phrase
Similarly, in the phrase very dirty, very modifies dirty which is therefore the head of this phrase.
Since dirty, the head, is an adjective, this phrase is an Adjective Phrase, or in short an AdjP. An
adjective phrase is a group of words which modifies a noun. Like adjectives, these words can be either
attributive (that is, usually preceding but occasionally following a noun):

The child, laughing happily, ran out of the house.

That utterly fascinating novel has been banned.

or predicative (that is, following a verb):

The letter was unbelievably rude.

He seemed extremely pleasant.

3. Verb Phrase
A verb phrase is a group of words with a verb as headword. Verb phrases can be either finite:

He has been singing.

or non-finite:

to have sung

A simple sentence can have only one finite verb phrase:

He may be following us.

but a complex sentence may have several finite verb phrases:

When he was invited to give a lecture, he was told that all reasonable expenses would be refunded.

4. Adverb Phrase
An adverb phrase is a group of words which functions like an adverb; it often plays the role of
telling us when, where, why or how an event occurred:

We are expecting him to come next year.

He almost always arrives on time.
He ran very quickly.

5. Prepositional phrase
A preposition phrase is a group of words that begins with a preposition:

He arrived by plane.
Do you know that man with the scar?
A number of modern linguists use the term ‘phrase’ in a slightly different way to that described above.
They compare such sentences as:
The young man has arrived,
and:
He arrived.
pointing out that ‘he’ functions in exactly the same way as ‘the young man’ and ‘arrived’ in exactly the
same way as ‘has arrived’. Concentrating on the similarity of function, they define a noun phrase, for
example, as ‘a word or group of words which can function as a subject, object or complement in a sentence’:
The young man came in/He came in.
The young man defended his mother/He defended her.
The answer was ‘400 hours’/The answer was this.

Similarly, a verb phrase is a word or group of words which can function as a predicate in a sentence:
He arrived at two. He will arrive at two.
Both uses have value. A student must be aware of the different values attached to the same word but must
also be consistent in his own use.
Not only are words in a sentence grouped into phrases, they are also sometimes hierarchically organized
within a phrase. For example, if we take the NP a very dirty shirt, we know that even though a and very
appear next to each other, they have nothing to do with each other: a modifies shirt, whereas very modifies
dirty, and it is very dirty together that modifies shirt. Even though they appear in the same phrase, words
may have nothing to do with each other, and are hierarchically organized to modify certain elements.
Thus we should visualize the structure of the NP a very dirty shirt as not (a) but as (b).

Another thing that needs to be made very clear here about phrases is that even though they are usually made
up of at least two words, this is not a necessary condition. A phrase is minimally constituted/made up of
the head word, which also decides the syntactic category of the phrase. That is, an NP may be ideally made
up of an article, one or more adjectives and the head noun, but it may also be made up of just a noun. This
can be very easily understood in terms of how one word can replace an entire phrase. In a sentence
like “The captain of the ship saw a huge iceberg,” we can replace the captain of the ship with one word, say
a name like Sheela or a pronoun like she. Thus, we find that, Sheela in Sheela saw a huge iceberg and the
captain of the ship in the captain of the ship saw a huge iceberg play the same grammatical role and therefore
are considered instances of the same grammatical category, that is, a Noun Phrase. This is true of all phrasal
categories including verb phrases. So, while we may have a sentence like “Lovely colourful birds fly over
my house every morning,” where lovely colourful birds is an NP and fly over my house every morning is
a VP. This same structure could be formed just with the head words of each of the phrases as “Birds fly”,
where birds is still the NP and fly is the VP. What you have to understand here is that when we say that fly
is a verb phrase here, we are not referring to the literal meaning of a phrase as a group of words but rather
to the fact that this single verb occupies the same grammatical role as that of a verb phrase carrying.
The clause
A clause is a group of words which contains a finite verb but which cannot occur in isolation, that is, a
clause constitutes only part of a sentence. In each complex sentence, we have at least two clauses: a main
clause (that is, a clause that is most like a simple sentence) and at least one subordinate or dependent clause*
In the following examples, the main clauses are underlined:
He believed that the earth was round.
He arrived as the clock was striking.
The following types of subordinate clause are found:
1. Noun Clause: A noun clause is a group of words containing a finite verb and functioning like a noun:
He said that he was tired.
What you said was not true.
The fact that the earth moves round the sun is well known.

Noun clauses can often be replaced by pronouns:

He said this.
When you are in doubt about how a clause functions in a sentence, you should see what can be substituted
for it. All the following possibilities are acceptable:
I shall always remember John.
him.
his kindness.
what John has done.

Thus, pronouns, nouns and noun phrases can usually be substituted for noun clauses.

2. Adjective Clause: An adjective clause is often called a ‘relative clause’ because it usually relates back
to a noun whose meaning it modifies:

The dog which won the competition is an alsatian.

The man who taught my brother French is now the headmaster.
The girl whom we met on holiday is coming to see us next week.

When an adjective/relative clause begins with ‘that/which/whom’ and is followed by a subject, the
subordinator can be omitted:

The book (that) John bought is missing.

The coat (which) she wore is red.
The man (whom) we met was my uncle.

There is virtually no difference in meaning between:

The book which I bought.............

and:
The book that I bought.............

or:

The book I bought.............

although the third is the least formal and so the most likely to occur in spontaneous speech.

Occasionally an adjective clause can begin with ‘when’:

I remember the day when we won the cup.

or ‘where’:

The town where they met was called Scarborough.

It is usually easy to decide whether a ‘when/where’ clause is adjectival or adverbial. If the ‘when’ can be
replaced by ‘on which’ and the ‘where’ by ‘in which/at which’ we are dealing with adjective clauses.

3. Adverbial Clause: An adverbial clause functions like an adverb in giving information about when,
where, why, how or if an action occurred:

When he arrived we were all sleeping.

Put it where we can all see it.
They won the match because they were the best players.
He put it away as quietly as he could.
If you want any more you’ll have to get it yourself.

Adverbial clauses are perhaps the most frequently used clauses in the language and, like adverbs, they are
often mobile:

When he arrived we were all sleeping.

We were all sleeping when he arrived.

A number of modern linguists use the term ‘clause’ somewhat differently to the above classification. They
call units containing a finite verb ‘finite clauses’ and units containing non-finite verb forms such as ‘to see’,
‘seeing’ and ‘seen’, ‘non-finite clauses’. A few examples will illustrate their usage. In the following
sentences:

He went to Paris because he wanted a rest.

He went to Paris to have a rest.

both underlined units tell us why he went to Paris but only the first one contains a finite verb. Similarly
with:

When he heard the results he went home.

On hearing the results he went home

and:
If it is looked at from this angle the colours seem to change.
Looked at from this angle the colours seem to change.

the underlined units function in similar ways, being distinguished mainly by the fact that the first examples
contain finite verbs and the second examples non-finite verbs. Linguists who concentrate on the formal
distinction, that is, the occurrence or non-occurrence of a finite verb in a unit, classify such units as clauses
and phrases respectively. Those who concentrate on the functional similarities classify both these units as
clauses, distinguishing between them in terms of whether the verb used is finite or non-finite. Thus all
linguists will agree that the underlined units in the following sentences function as subjects:

His behaviour is understandable.

To behave in this way is understandable.
Whatever he does is understandable.

but they will classify these subjects according to their preferred model* What is important is to be consistent
in one’s use of terminology.