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CHAPTER Syntax

LEARNING OUTCOME

Upon completion of this chapter, you should be able to:

1. distinguish between phrases and clauses in sentence structure;

2. draw appropriate tree diagram for six phrases; and

3. analyse different types of sentences using conventional linguistic

techniques;

ELL322 LINGUISTICS FOR LANGUAGE TEACHER

 ………………………………… Syntax CHAPTER 6

INTRODUCTION

So far this study has concentrated on isolated words in the language but now we shall turn to
words in combination. British linguists often use the term 'grammar' for the same level of
language that is referred to as 'syntax' by many Americans. For the moment the main emphasis
will be on the level of language that examines how words combine into larger units. We
shall study only three of these units-the phrase, the clause and the sentence-and we
shall provide straightforward, traditional definitions. Different linguists, however, often
define terms differently. Structuralists, for example, would label 'sheep', 'that lovely sheep' and
‘that sheep are unpredictable’ as:
sheep - word/free morpheme
that lovely sheep - phrase
that sheep are unpredictable - clause

whereas transformationalists would call them all noun phrases.

There is value in each approach. The structuralist one concentrates on the formal differences
whereas transformationalists concentrate on the functional similarities in that all three can occur
in the same slot:
Sheep can be seen clearly.
That lovely sheep can be seen clearly.
That sheep are unpredictable can be seen clearly.

6.1 THE 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. Consider this
definition by examining a few sentences. In:
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

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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. We have also said
that a phrase does not contain a finite verb, so now we shall look at what a finite verb is.
A finite verb is one that can take as its subject a pronoun such as ‘T’, ‘we’, ‘he’, ‘she’, ‘it’, ‘they’. Thus
we can have:
I see
he sees
they saw

but not:
I seeing
he to see
we seen

and we can say that the present participle (that is, forms such as 'seeing'), the infinitive (that is,
forms such as ‘to see’) and the past participle (that is, forms such as 'seen') are non-finite verb forms.
Only non-finite verb forms can occur in phrases:
Bending low, he walked awkwardly into the small room.
Seen from this angle, the mountains look blue.

There are five commonly occurring types of phrase in English: noun phrases, adjective phrases, verb
phrases, adverb phrases and preposition phrases.

1) 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.

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2) 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) 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 ail reasonable expenses
would be refunded.

4) 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) 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?
We are on very good terms.

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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.

6.2 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.

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The following types of subordinate clause are found:

1) A noon 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 Muhammad.
him.
his kindness.
what Muhammad has done.
Thus, pronouns, nouns and noun phrases can usually be substituted for noun clauses.

2) 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 subordinates 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 …

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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 cap,
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) 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.

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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.

6.3 THE SENTENCE

In 1952 C. C. Fries (see Bibliography) examined over two hundred definitions of 'sentence' in
the hope of finding the most useful. He discovered that, as with so many grammatical units, it
is easier to show what they look like than to say what they are. Thus the following are sentences:
The man died.
The dog chased the cat.
The girl is a good student.
That child is very tall.
The boy ran up the hill.

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They can exist independently, do not rely on any other unit and can be interpreted without
reference to any other piece of language. Fries decided that the most workable definition of
sentence was the one that had been provided by Bloornfield in 1933 (see Bibliography),
according to which:
Each sentence is an independent linguistic form, not included by virtue of any grammatical construction in
any larger linguistic form.

All the above examples fit this definition. The man died', for example, is independent in a way
that 'when the man died' is not. This clause depends on such a construction as:
They were all very sad (when the man died).

An even simpler categorisation of 'sentence' can be applied to the written medium in that we
can define a sentence as 'that linguistic unit which begins with a capital letter and ends with a full
stop'. Both these definitions of 'sentence' are useful but it will be worth our while to study
further both the types of sentences that occur in English and their internal construction.
Sentences can be divided into four sub-types:

1) Declarative sentences make statements or assertions:

I shall arrive at three.
You are not the only applicant.
Peace has its victories.
We must not forget that date.

2) Imperative sentences give orders, make requests and usually have no overt subject:
Come here.
Don't do that.
Try to help.
Don't walk on the grass.

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3) Interrogative sentences ask questions:

Did you see your brother yesterday?
Can't you hear that awful noise?
When did he arrive?
Why don't they play cricket here?

You will notice that there are two types of interrogative question, those which expect the
answer ‘yes’ or ‘n’:
Can you sing?
Are you going to the wedding?

and those which begin with the question words what?, where?, which?', who?, whom?, why?, or how?
and which expect an answer other than yes or no.

4) Exclamatory sentences are used to express surprise, alarm, indignation or a strong

opinion. They are differentiated from other sentences by taking an exclamation mark:
He's going to win!
You can't be serious!
What a fool I was!
I've never heard such rubbish in all my life!

Sentences can also be classified as being either major or minor. All the examples above are
major in that they contain finite verbs. Minor sentences do not contain finite verbs and
they are frequently found in colloquial speech:
Got a match?
Not likely!
Just a minute!

in proverbial utterances:
Out of sight, out of mind.
In for a penny, in for a pound,

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and in advertising:
Always ahead of the times.
The cheapest and best.

Apart from the above categorisations of sentences, we often find it useful to distinguish
between sentences which are 'simple', 'compound' or 'complex'.

5) Simple sentences contain only one finite verb:

Water boils at 100° centigrade.
You must not say such things.

The finite verb may be composed of up to four auxiliaries plus a headverb:

He may have been being followed all the time,

and may be interrupted by a negative or an adverb:

He was never seen again.
We can hardly ask them for any more.

The term 'simple' refers to the fact that the sentence contains only one finite verb. It does
not imply that the sentence is easy to understand. The following sentence, for example, is
simple in structure but semantically it is quite difficult:
Quangos are quasi-autonomous, non-governmental organisations.

6) Compound sentences consist of two or more simple sentences linked by the co-ordinating
conjunctions and, but, so, either... or, neither... nor, or, then and yet:
He ran out and (he) fell over the suitcase.
She arrived at nine, went up to her room and did not come down until noon.
He could neither eat nor sleep.

In compound sentences, the shared elements in the conjoined simple sentences can be
elided:
You may go in and (you may) talk to him for five minutes.

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7) Complex sentences consist of one simple sentence and one or more subordinate (or
dependent) clauses. In the following sentence:
She became queen when her father died because she was the eldest child.

we have one main clause:

She became queen

and two subordinate clauses:

when her father died

and:
because she was the eldest child.

You will notice that each clause has a finite verb, 'became', 'died' and 'was' in the example
above, and that each subordinate clause begins with a subordinating conjunction. The
commonest subordinating conjunctions in English are:

after: She washed the dishes after she had cooked the meal.
although/though: Although they were poor, they were honest.
as: As Muhammad says, it's time to go.
as … (as): He is as tall as his father was.
because: He left the town because he did not like crowds.
before: He arrived before we did.
if:: If you try hard you will certainly succeed.
since: I have not seen him since we left grammar school.
until/till: He worried about everything until his daughter arrived.
when: Time passes quickly when you are happy.
where: He built his home where his ancestors had lived.
whether. . . or Muhammad is the best runner whether he knows it or not.
not:
which/that: This is the house which/that Jack built.
while: Do not cross the tracks while the lights are red.

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Subordinate clauses are characterised by the fact that they cannot occur alone. They depend on
a main clause. In some modern descriptions, subordinate clauses are called 'embedded
sentences' because they resemble simple sentences but are modified so as to fit into other
constructions. We can have, for example, the two simple sentences:
The man arrived late,
and:
The man wore a large hat.

The second is embedded in the first when we transform the two simple sentences into the complex
one:
The man who wore a large hat arrived late.

Compound-complex sentences are, as their name suggests, a combination of complex sentences

joined by co-ordinating conjunctions:
I saw him when he arrived the first time but I didn't see him when he came again.

We have looked at the types of sentences that can occur and will now focus on the internal
structure of a sentence. The basic pattern of the simple English sentence is:
(Adjunct) (Subject) Predicate (Object) (Complement) (Adjunct)
usually given as:
(A)(S)P(O)(C)(A)

where only the predicate is essential and where the adjunct is mobile. A few simple examples will
show how the formula works. Such sentences as:
The man disappeared.
The poor young woman died.

divide into two parts, a noun part:

The man
The poor young woman

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and a verb part:

disappeared
died

We call the noun part a 'subject' and the verb part a ‘predicate’. We know that the subject is
a unit because we can substitute 'he' for ‘the man’ and 'she' for 'the poor young woman'. The
verb part can usually be retrieved by asking such questions as 'what did he do?/what has he
done?’ and omitting the pronoun in the answer. Notice that if our first sentence had been:
The man has disappeared.

our question would retrieve the whole predicate, in this case "has disappeared'. In the
sentences:
The man disappeared yesterday.
Quite suddenly the man disappeared.

the underlined segments are called 'adjuncts' because they can usually be deleted without
causing grammatical loss. (Their removal would, of course, result in loss of information.)
These adjuncts are usually quite mobile:
Suddenly the man disappeared.
The man suddenly disappeared.
The man disappeared suddenly.

If we take a different type of sentence:

Muhammad won't eat his breakfast.

we see that it splits up into three parts: the subject 'Muhammad', the predicate 'won't eat' and
the object ‘his breakfast’. The object resembles the subject in that it is noun-like, but there are
three main differences:

1) The subject normally precedes the predicate. The object normally

follows the predicate.
2) The subject can usually be retrieved by putting who or what before the predicate, 'Who
won't eat bis breakfast?' produces the answer 'Muhammad', the subject. The object can

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be retrieved by putting 'whom' or 'what' after the predicate: 'Muhammad won't eat what?
produces the answer 'his breakfast', the object.
3) When subjects and objects are replaced by pronouns, there is often
a different pronoun for the two positions:
Karim bit Rosli. He hit him.
Siti hit Nur. She hit her.
Karim and Siti hit Rosli and Nur. They hit them.

Adjuncts can occur in most sentences: Usually Muhammad won't eat his breakfast. Muhammad
won't eat his breakfast usually. Looking now at such sentences as: Muhammad is a fine teacher.
Nur is becoming an excellent athlete.

we see that we again have three parts, but there is a fundamental difference between these
sentences and sentences of the type Subject Predicate Object in that 'Muhmmad' = ‘a fine
teacher’ and 'Siti' = 'an excellent athlete'. Such sentences always involve such verbs as BE,

BECOME, SEEM and APPEAR, and GROW when they are used in such constructions as:
He appeared the best choice.
He grew weary.

These verbs take 'complements' and the complements can be a noun phrase:
He was a first-class sportsman.

an adjective:
She is becoming insolent.

a preposition + a noun phrase:

He was in the bus.

and occasionally an adverb:

The fire is out.

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The complements above are called 'subject complements' because they provide information
on the subjects. We can also have 'object complements' as in:
They elected Muhammad President.
Muhammad called his son Ali.

Again, you will notice that the object 'Muhammad' is the same as 'President' and 'his son' as
'Ali'. Sentences involving complements can also have adjuncts:
Muhammad was a candidate yesterday.
They elected Muhammad President yesterday.

We can summarise the above data with examples as follows:

P Go.
PA Go quietly.
SP Karim slept.
SPA Karim slept quietly.
PO Eat your breakfast.
SPO Karim ate his breakfast.
SPOA Karim ate his breakfast quickly.
SPC Karim is a fool.
ASPC At times Karim is a fool.
SPOC Karim called his brother a fool.
SAPOC Karim often called his brother a fool.

In our examination of sentence patterns, four operations will prove useful. They are insertion,
deletion, substitution and transposition (also called permutation). We can illustrate these operations as
follows:

Insertion: This would involve changing such a sentence as:

The child is clever,
into:
The little child is exceptionally clever.

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Deletion: In the sentence:

The tall man saw him last Friday.

we can delete the adjective 'tall' and the adjunct 'last Friday' leaving the grammatically acceptable:
The man saw him.

Substitution: In such sentences as:

The young man visited his mother.

we can substitute pronouns for both subject and object:

He visited her.

Often too, auxiliary verbs can replace verb phrases:

He might have come, mightn't he?

where 'mightn't he' substitutes for 'might he not have come'.

Transposition: This involves the mobility of sentence constituents and we have already seen how
adjuncts can be transposed/moved from one part of a sentence to another. Other sentence
constituents are less mobile, but occasionally, for effect, an object may precede both subject and
predicate:
Three men I saw.

However, such a sentence is much less usual than ‘I saw three men’.

6.4 GRAMMATICAL, ACCEPTABLE, INTERPRETABLE

It is perhaps appropriate to consider the meanings of these three words as they apply to
language. A piece of language is 'grammatical' if it does not break any of the rules of the
standard language. Thus:
The cat died.

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is grammatical as is:
The cat that the dog chased died.

and so is:
The cat that the dog that the man hit chased died.

Most native speakers would not, however, accept the third sentence. It is certainly grammatical
in that all we have done is add one adjective clause that describes the dog. The result, however,
is three consecutive verbs and this is unacceptable. It is unacceptable inform rather than in
content as is clear if we look at an acceptable version of the above sentence:
This is the man that hit the dog that chased the cat that died.

As soon as the adjective clauses occur at the end of the sentence we can accept any number of
them. When they are embedded within a sentence, most people cannot accept more than two
adjective clauses.

If we now look at sentences which are ambiguous, we find a second type of unacceptability. A
sentence such as:
Their designs were unacceptable.

cannot, out of context, be interpreted as having one meaning. Here 'designs' could mean
either 'drawings' or 'intentions'. When the ambiguity resides in the word it is called 'lexical
ambiguity' and this is a common feature of English and of many other languages. At its most
extreme, we can have a word like 'cleave' which can mean both 'adhere to/ding to' and also
'open up/separate'. With most words, however, the meanings are related as when 'chip' can
refer to a small piece of wood, of potato or of silicon. As well as lexical ambiguity, we have
syntactic ambiguity where a structure is capable of more than one interpretation. In English,
the structure:
+ noun

is the most frequent cause of syntactic ambiguity.

Visiting relatives can cause problems.

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is ambiguous because it can mean both:

Relatives who visit us can cause problems.

and:
When we visit relatives there can be problems.

Headlines in newspapers are a common source of syntactic ambiguity partly because of the
need for compression. The following recent headline, for example:
PAY CUTS PROBLEMS

is capable of two contradictory interpretations: The pay settlement will reduce problems'
and 'Here are the problems associated with cuts in pay'.

Sentences involving ambiguity thus lead to problems of interpretation. In speech or in

continuous prose such ambiguities are rarely noticed because the context of situation or the
use of intonation and stress makes one interpretation most probable. In isolation, however,
in the written medium, a unique interpretation is often impossible.

Samples of non-standard English are usually interpretable although they are ungrammatical
according to the rules of the standard language. If a speaker, for example, says:
I seen him yesterday.

most listeners have no problem interpreting this. Similarly, few would experience problems in
interpreting:
 Pass me them boots.
 He did it for to please his friend.

Thus interpretability does not depend directly on grammaticality. Where the sample of language
deliberately frustrates the expectations of a language user, as when an inanimate noun is made
to collocate with a verb that needs an animate subject, as in:
 Gentleness admired the view.
 Happiness broke its leg.
then the result will be neither grammatical, nor acceptable, nor interpretable.

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We should add that what has been called ‘poetic licence’ allows poets to exploit language in
ways which would be unacceptable in normal circumstances. The American poet e e
cummings (who refused to use capital letters or full stops after his initials) produced such lines
as:
 anyone lived in a pretty how town
 four fleet does at a gold valley
 the famished arrow sang before

which are certainly not intelligible out of context. And when the linguist, Noam Chomsky,
created a sentence which deliberately frustrated our expectations:
Colourless green ideas sleep furiously.

(colourless cannot be green; ideas cannot be green; ideas cannot sleep; sleeping is a passive
experience) several poets insisted that, for them, the sentence was acceptable.

Pick out the noun clauses in the following sentences and say whether they function as
subjects, objects or complements.
(a) She supposed that they would have enough money.
(b) What we heard was a tissue of lies.
(c) When confronted by the facts, he became what one might describe as agitated.
(d) That is all I can remember.
(e) 'Who was she?' was of course the first question that everyone asked.

Write down all the clauses in the following sentences saying (a) whether they are main or
subordinate clauses and (b) what type of subordinate clause has been used.

(a) I shall always remember what you said.

(b) When we arrived everyone was asleep.
(c) It was what everyone had feared.
(d) He arrived on the very day when we were celebrating your birthday.
(e) The hat which I bought was the wrong colour.

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SUMMARY

We have now looked at the syntax of the language and seen the flexibility that can be
exploited by users of English. It is worth remembering that complex structures are not
necessarily a feature of good style and also that effective communication relies on a
structure being grammatical, acceptable and interpretable.

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