Tools of Analysis II, By Dr.Shadia Banjar, LANE 334, Syntax, 2010

1. Tools of Analysis
II
By: http://SBANJAR.kau.edu.sa/
Dr. Shadia Y. Banjar http://wwwdrshadiabanjar.blogspot.com
Dr. Shadia Yousef Banjar 1

2. LANGUAGE
SPOKEN WRITTEN
We are going to
deal with written
Sentences.
Dr. Shadia Yousef Banjar 2

3. LEVELS OF LINGUISTIC ANALYSIS
PHONOLOGY
MORPHOLOGY
SYNTAX
SEMANTICS
PRAGMATICS
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4. Phonology looks at and describes the sound system
of a language.
Morphology looks at the way words are formed .
Syntax describes the way words fit together to form
sentences or utterances.
Semantics study meaning.
Pragmatics study usage.
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5. Syntax
• Syntax: is the branch of
linguistics deals with sentence
structure.
• In order to study the structure of
sentences, we have to know the
grammatical rules governing the
way words are combined to form
‘well-formed’ sentences.
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6. √√√√√√√ a ‘well-formed’
sentence
1. I shot the sheriff.
Native
XXXXXXX speaker
2. *the shot sheriff I.
an ‘ill-formed’
sentence
Native
speaker
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7. (consist of)
S word + word + word + …….
(sentence) word order
rules
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8. SYNTACTIC CATEGORIES
To understand the language in terms of syntactic rules, we
have to know what are the SYNTACTIC CATEGORIES!
A syntactic category is either a phrasal category, such as
noun phrase or verb phrase, which can be decomposed into
smaller syntactic categories, or a lexical category, such as
noun or verb, which cannot be further decomposed.
The three criteria used in defining syntactic categories are:
1. The type of meaning it expresses.
2. The type of affixes it takes.
3. The structure in which it occurs.
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9. A family of expressions that can substitute for one
another without loss of grammaticality is called a
syntactic category.
1. The cat chases the mouse.
2. The dog chases the mouse
3. The policeman chases the mouse.
4. The mother mouse chases the mouse.
If words and phrases could not be assigned to a
small group of categories, it would be very hard to
learn or use a language.
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10. – In the given examples: 1-4,
– every word is a member of a category.
– a word’s category type determines the
kind of phrase it can form.
– a phrase is a word or string of words
that functions as a unit in a sentence,
built around a head.
– Every language has specific phrase
structure rules determining how phrases
can be combined to form sentences.
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11. WORD CATEGORIES
WORD
CATEGORIES
FUNCTIONAL LEXICAL
WORD WORD
CATEGORIES CATEGORIES
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12. LEXICAL WORD CATEGORIES
Lexical word categories are:
§Words that have some sort of inherent meaning
are called lexical words (or content words).
§Categories related to such words are called
lexical categories e.g. NOUN, VERB, ADJECTIVE.
§Open-class in the sense that new words can be
Open-class
added, and thus have a large number of class
members.
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13. Functional word categories
Functional word categories are:
§Words that don’t have (an easily detectable) inherent
meaning are called functional words because such words
perform some function in the sentence.
§Categories belong to such words are called FUNCTIONAL
CATEGORIES e.g. DETERMINER, CONJUNCTION
§Functional word categories tend to be CLOSED-CLASS
(new words may not be added) and have a small number of
class members.
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14. NOUN
Morphological properties
• it can take a plural -s morpheme;
Exceptions: children, deer, mice, fish, . . .
• it can be modified by a possessive (apostrophe: ’s)
• it contains morphemes like the following: -ity, -ness,
-er, -ment, -ance, -hood.
These are all NOUN- OR NOMINAL SUFFIXES e.g.
friendliness, writer, government, neighborhood.
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15. Syntactic properties of the class of NOUN
• preceded by articles like: a, an, the,
demonstrative pronouns like: this, that, these,
those and numerals like: one, two, three.
•preceded by an ADJECTIVE or several
ADJECTIVES.
•preceded by a PREPOSITION.
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16. Verb
Morphological properties
• takes a past tense –ed1 form e.g. He walked.
• takes the –s form of the verb for third-person
singular agreement e.g. He goes to work daily.
• takes the –ing form to express the
progressive aspect e.g. he is running.
• takes the –ed2 form to express the perfective
aspect e.g. I have finished my work.
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17. Syntactic properties of the class of VERB
• preceded by AUXILIARIES e.g. He has gone.
•preceded by MODAL VERBS e.g. She can
cook.
•preceded by negation words like not and
never e.g. Do not cry, He never shouts.
• followed by an ADVERB or ADVERBS e.g. He
snores loudly
• can be followed by a NOUN e.g. I hate John.
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18. ADJECTIVE
Morphological properties of the class of ADJECTIVE
• has morphemes like -ous, -y, -ish, e.g. furious,
angry, brownish, friendly.
•able to form comparatives and superlatives with -er
and -est. e.g. bigger , biggest.
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19. Syntactic properties of the class of ADJECTIVE
• can be preceded by ADVERBS e.g. very
angry.
•modifies a NOUN.
It can come after determiners like the, a, this,
these, those and numerals and before
NOUNS e.g. the angry boy, those twelve small
monkeys.
•cannot immediately follow PREPOSITIONS
e.g. *in angry. XXXXXXX
•can follow VERBS. E.g. He is angry.
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20. ADVERB
Morphological properties of the class of ADVERB
• often followed by the morpheme –ly, e.g. softly,
quickly, angrily.
Exceptions: abroad, now, fast, often, well, also, very,
too, never, so, ...
Syntactic properties of the class of ADVERB
• modifies a VERB; e.g. walks quickly.
•modifies an ADJECTIVE; e.g. swiftly angry.
•modifies another ADVERB; e.g. very angrily.
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21. Constituents
A constituent is a grammatical unit which
is part of a larger grammatical unit.
in example (1):
• The cat = noun phrase
• Noun Phrase =determiner + noun
• "determiner" and "noun“ are the
constituents of the noun phrase.
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22. TREE DIAGRAMS
Three aspects of a speaker’s syntactic
knowledge are explicitly represented in tree
diagrams:
1. The linear order of the words in the
sentence,
2. the groupings of words into syntactic
categories, and
3. the hierarchical structure of the syntactic
categories.
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23. The Tree Diagram For:
Juliet loves Romeo
S
VP
NP
V NP
N
N
Juliet loves Romeo
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24. Form and Function
•Words can be grouped in certain patterns to form
sentences.
•In terms of forms, a sentence consists of a noun
phrase and a verb phrase.
•In terms of function, a sentence consists of a subject
and a predicate. A predicate must contain a predicator
which is a verb.
•The class of a constituent indicates its form and what
the form does or acts as a grammatical unit indicates its
function.
• The position of the constituent determines its
grammatical function.
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