Introduction

Syntax is the part of grammar which deals with sentences and combinability of words. The core of syntax is the study of the sentence. Syntax embraces on the one hand the structure of the sentence, that is, its components, their structure and the relations between these components, and on the other hand structural and communicative types of sentences.

Syntax is all about the structure of sentences, and what determines which words go where. Studying syntax allows us to define descriptive rules about how language works. This part of grammar looks at the rules of a language, particularly how the various parts of sentences go together. While similar to morphology, which looks at how the smallest meaningful linguistic units, called morphemes, are formed into complete words, syntax examines how fully formed words fit together to create complete and understandable sentences. Understanding a language's syntax is important for understanding what makes a sentence grammatically correct.

We can all speak and understand each other; do we need to investigate how?

Studying syntax is relevant to a lot of subject areas in linguistics.

Aim: We must study syntax to understand how children acquire their language, how they start constructing sentences and what stage do they learn the tacit syntactic rules of the language. It’s also good to study syntax so we can understand how bilingual and multilingual speakers are able to construct their sentences despite having different structures for different languages. The sentence structure isn’t the same in English as it is in Japanese!

The Purpose of Syntax

Linguists and grammarians who study syntax are not necessarily prescriptivist, which means they do not attempt to tell people how to "correctly" form a sentence. Rather, they are descriptivist, in that they look at how people actually speak and then create rules that describe what a language community considers grammatical or non-grammatical. Syntax deals with a number of elements, all of which help to facilitate being understood through language. Without rules, there would be no foundation from which to discern meaning from a bunch of words strung together; whereas these rules allow for a virtually infinite number of sentences.

Contents

Chapter 1 THE SENTENCE ............................................................................5

1.1 Structural classification of sentences..........................................................6

Chapter 2 THE SIMPLE SENTENCE

2.1 Two-member sentences...............................................................................6

2.2 One-member sentences...............................................................................7

2.3 Elliptical (incomplete) sentences................................................................7

Chapter 3 COMMUNICATIVE TYPES OF SENTENCES

3.1 Declarative sentences..................................................................................8

3.2 Interrogative sentences ...............................................................................9

3.3 General questions........................................................................................9

3.4 Alternative questions..................................................................................10

3.5 Suggestive questions...................................................................................10

3.6 Imperative sentences...................................................................................10

3.7 Exclamatory sentences................................................................................11

Chapter 4 NON-SENTENCE UTTERANCES..................................................11-12

Chapter 5 PARTS OF THE SENTENCE

5.1 Word-forms....................................................................................................13

5.2 Phrases............................................................................................................13

5.3 Clauses.............................................................................................................15

5.4 Levels of syntactical analysis..........................................................................15

5.5 The subject ......................................................................................................16

5.6 The predicate...................................................................................................17

5.7 The simple nominal predicate.........................................................................18

5.8 The compound predicate................................................................................18

5.9 The object.......................................................................................................19

Chapter 6 WORD ORDER

6.1 The grammatical function of word order.........................................................20

6.2 Direct word order............................................................................................20

6.3 Inverted word order.........................................................................................22

6.4 The emphatic and communicative functions of word order............................22

6.5 The linking function of word order.................................................................22

List of literature…………………………………………………………………23

Chapter 1 THE SENTENCE

Anything that is said in the act of communication is called an utterance. Most utterances are sentences, although there are some which are not sentences and are called non-sentence utterances. Thus utterances fall into two groups: sentences and non-sentence utterances.

Sentences may be regarded from the point of view of their structure and their communicative value.

1.1 Structural classification of sentences

From the point of view of their structure, sentences can be:

1. Simple or composite (compound and complex).

2. Complete or incomplete (elliptical).

3. Two-member (double-nucleus) or one-member (single-nucleus).

These three classifications are based on different approaches to the structural organisation of sentences and reflect its different aspects.

The difference between the simple sentence and the composite sentence lies in the fact that the former contains only one subject-predicate unit and the latter more than one. Subject-predicate units that form composite sentences are called clauses.

Honesty is the best policy. (one subject-predicate unit)

Still waters run deep. (one subject-predicate unit)

You can take a horse to the water, but you cannot make him drink, (two subject-predicate units, or two

clauses)

You never know what you can do till you try. (three subject-predicate units, or three clauses)

The difference between the compound and complex sentence lies in the relations between the clauses that constitute them

Complete and incomplete (or elliptical) sentences are distinguished by the presence or absence of word-forms in the principal positions of two-member sentences.

In a complete sentence both the principal positions are filled with word-forms.

When did you arrive?

I came straight here.

In an incomplete (elliptical) sentence one or both of the main posi­tions are not filled, but can be easily supplied as it is clear from the context what is missing.

Cheerful, aren’t you?

Ready?

Could’ve been professional.

Wrong again.

Elliptical sentences are typical of conversational English. One-member and two-member sentences are distinguished by the num­ber of principal parts (positions) they contain: two-member sentences have two main parts - the subject and the predicate, while one-member sen­tences have only one principal part, which is neither the subject nor the predicate.

Two-member sentences:

The magpie flew off.

We are going to my house now.

One-member sentences:

An old park.

Mid-summer.

Low tide, dusty water.

To live alone in this abandoned house!