1. The Analysis of
Sentence Structure
By Carinne Karlick and Kaitlyn Hinze

2. What is Syntax?
 Syntax is generally defined as the system of rules
for the formation of sentence structure (Topic A).
 One word does not express much, therefore we put
words in order to create meaning.
 Utterances must be grammatical to be
considered a possible sentence of a language.
 Any combination of words does not produce a well-formed
sentence.
 For example: Student book brought the home.
 Correct: The student brought the book home.
(O’Grady, p.251).

3. Theory of Syntax
 A theory of syntax is an attempt to describe the rules that
govern order of words and to account for how syntax is
changed to create different sentences (Freeman, p. 220).
Four steps to building a theory of syntax:
 Determine what elements to include (linear order of
words)
 Recognize that words in a sentence are not all the same
 Group the words
 Consider the function of each group of words
 Find connections among the parts of the sentence

4. Transformational Grammar
O’Grady introduces this approach that is widely accepted by linguists., although many
linguists disagree with various features.
 Universal Grammar (UG) is the system of
categories, operations and principles shared by all
languages. It is believed that the syntactic
component of any grammar must include 2
subcomponents:
 Lexicon: provides a list of the languages words &
information about punctuation, form and meaning.
 Computational System: operations that combine and
arrange words in certain ways.
 (O’Grady, P. 152)

5. Syntactic Categories
Lexical Categories Non-lexical Categories
 Noun (N)  Determiner (Det)
 EX: boy, dog, Rachel, moisture, desk  EX: the, a this, these
 Verb (V)  Auxiliary Verb (Aux)
 EX: run, talk, depart, jump  Modal: will, can, may, should
 Adjective (A)  Non-modal: be, have
 EX: happy, brave, fond, short  Conjunction (Con)
 Preposition (P)  Ex: and, or, but
 EX: to, in, by, near  Degree Word (Deg)
 Adverb (Adv)  Ex: too, so, very, quite
 EX: chiefly, slowly, quietly, always
(O’Grady, P153)

6. Rules (from Freeman, pp. 223-228)
 The Question Rule: forming questions from statements.
Linguists try to form rules that govern processes as clearly
as possible so that they may be tested against new
sentences. They state a rule (a hypothesis) and then test
the rules against possible sentences. Each time a
counterexample is found, the rules is revisited.
 Phrase Structure Rules: attempt to specify how the phrases
in a sentence are structured. Phrase structure rules are
written in certain conventions:
 Noun Phrase (NP) --Determiner (DET)
 Auxiliary verb (AUX) --Quantifier (Q)
 Verb Phrase (VP) --Adjective Phrase (ADJP)
 Prepositional Phrase (PP) --Adverb Phrase (ADVP)
Sentence  NP-AUX-VP
NP  (DET)-(Q)-(ADJP)-N-(PP)
VPV-(NP)-(PP)-(ADVP) (parentheses are optional)

7. Confusing Concepts
 Pinker (p. 211) identifies garden path sentences as
sentences, that are grammatically correct, but whose first
words lead the listener “up the garden path” to an incorrect
analysis.
 Example: The cotton clothing is usually made of grows in
Mississippi.
 According to O’Grady (p. 153), elements have meaning that
are harder to define than those of lexical categories.
 For example: the or would are harder to define than hill or vehicle.
 Some words belong to more than one category.
 For example: comb (N) The lady found a comb
comb (V) The boy should comb his hair.

8. How Do We Determine a Word’s Category?
 Meaning: nouns name people, places things ideas. Verbs
designate actions and states of being etc. But a word’s
category does not have a straightforward relationship to its
meaning (O’Grady, p. 154)
 Infection: the change of a word’s form to show
grammatical information of various sorts (O’Grady, p.127)
For example: plural, possessive, past tense, third person
singular etc. But infection does not always provide
information needed to determine a word’s category
(O’Grady, p. 155).
 Distribution: this criteria is more reliable. Nous appear
with determiners, verbs with an auxiliary and adjectives
with a degree word. (See table 5.3, O’Grady on p. 155)

9. Phrase Structure
 Sentences: are the largest unit of syntactic
analysis.
 Sentences have a hierarchical design in which
words are grouped together into successively larger
structural units.
 The structure of phrases are the units that stand
between words and sentences in syntactic
structure.
 A typical phrase can be broken down into 3 parts: a
head, a specifier and a complement arranged in the X’
Schema which are called (inverted) trees.
(O’Grady, pp.155-156)

10. Some Examples of Trees
from the O’Grady Trees Handout

11. Some More Trees
from the O’Grady Tress Handout
Tree diagrams, like other graphic organizers, are helpful because they show
relationships (Freeman, p. 232). Presenting trees as a helper, a graphic
organizer, will not worry students as much as diagramming as a drill.

12. Trees
 Heads: The nucleus around which a phrase is
built. Four categories can function as the head:
nouns (N), verbs (V), adjectives (A) and
prepositions (P).
 Specifiers: a specifer within a phrase depends on
the category of the head.
 Complements: provide information about
entities and locations whose existence is implied
by the head.
 Refer to O’Grady pp. 157-159

13. Tests for Phrase Structure
Constituents or the existence of syntactic units found in trees can be
verified with the help of special tests.
 The Substitution Test: syntactic units can be replaced by an
element such as they, it or do so.
 Ex: The children stopped at the corner.
They stopped at the corner or The children stopped there.
 The Movement Test: a constituent can be moved as a single
unit to a different position within a sentence.
 Ex: They stopped at the corner
At the corner, they stopped.
 The Coordination Test: a group of words forms a
constituent if it can be joined to another group of words by a
conjunction like and, or, or but.
 Ex: The children stopped at the corner and looked both ways.
(O’Grady, p. 162)

14. Complement
Information about complements allowed by a particular head is included in a speaker’s
lexicon.
 Verb Complement
Compliment option-NP Sample head- vanish Ex- The rabbit vanished
 Noun Complements
Compliment option-PPof Sample head- memory Ex- the memory [PP of a
friend]
 Adjective Complements
Complement option-PPto Sample Head- obvious Ex- obvious [PP to the
student]
 Preposition Complements
Complement option- NP Sample head- in Ex- in [NP the house]
(O’Grady, pp. 162-166)

15. MOVE
 The formation of questions require use of a structure-
building operation called move. Traditionally known as
transformation because it transforms an existing
structure.
 Example: Should that guy go?
That guy should go.
 A transformation or move operation can do no more than
change and element’s position (O’Grady, pp. 167-171)

16. Universal Grammar (UG)
 All languages are fundamentally alike with respect to the
basics of syntax.
 All languages use the merge operation to combine words
on the basis of their syntactic category and sub
categorization properties, creating phrases that comply
with the X’ schema.
 There is room for variation allowing individual languages
to differ with respect to certain parameters.
 Parameters are the set of options that UG permits for a
particular phenomenon. (O’Grady, P. 177)

17. Grammatical Acceptability
 Linguists use intuitions of native speakers to determine
grammatical acceptability.
 People studying a new language get frustrated when they
are corrected but the corrector cannot explain the rule for
determining which word to use (Freeman, p. 229).
 By attempting to describe syntactic structure, linguists are
trying to describe how the language words- not prescribing
correct usage.

18. Syntax and L2 Teaching
 One of the most widely used methods of teaching L2 is the
audiolingual method (ALM).
 In ALM, students are expected to learn syntax without explicit
instruction.
 Students have struggled using ALM because language is not simply
developed by imitating what people say. Rules need to be constructed
to comprehend and produce new language (Freeman, p. 246)
 Academic writing and speech contain more complex syntax than
conversational language.
 In the sociopsycholinguistic view of reading, syntactic cues are an
important source of information that readers use to make predictions
as they construct meaning. Some struggling readers read slowly to
pronounce each word, and fail to access syntactic cues.

19. Check Out These Helpful Websites
 Overview of Syntax
http://www.harmony.org.uk/book/linguistics_syntax.htm
Basic exercises in Syntax (trees)
http://www.mta.ca/~wburnett/syntex.html

20. References
 O’Grady, W., Archibald, J., Aronoff, M., & Rees-Miller, J.
(2005). Contemporary linguistics, an introduction.
(5th ed.). Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin's.
 Freeman, D. and Freeman Y. (2004). Essential Linguistics:
What You Need to Know to Teach Reading, ESL, Spelling,
Phonics, and Grammar. Heinneman.
 Pinker, S. (2007). The Language Instinct: How the mind
creates Language. New York: Harper Perennial. Harper
Collins.