Semantic Syntax

Semantic Syntax is represented by the names of Charles McCawley, W. Chafe, Russian linguists O.I.Moskalskaya and V.V.Bogdanov.

Semantic syntax describes sentences in terms of propositions, semantic structures (= deep structures), predicates and arguments. Relations between predicates and arguments are analysed in terms of deep cases: agentive case, objective case, instrumental case,locative case, beneficiary case, etc.

I open the door is a proposition. It’s semantic structure is as follows : the predicate is open; arguments are I and the door. I and open are connected by the agentive case; open the door by objective case as the door is an object. In the proposition The door opened. the door is logically an object, though grammatically it’s a subject, so that is an objective case. In the proposition The hammer broke the window the hammer logically is an instrument, broke is the predicate, the window is an object.

The present day trend is textual linguistics and intertextual linguistics. They describe discourse, its generation and relations between sentences and texts There came poststructuralism, postgenerative lines of analysis in tune with general postmodernistic trends in arts, fiction, thought which disregard the past and propose newer vision of linguistic facts. The linguistic scene is dominated by traditionalism, structuralism, behaviorism, functionalism, transformationalism, generativism, poststructuralism.

On the eve of the XXI- st century linguistics is flourishing throughout the world, but much in flux to predict newer theories with any confidence.

Methods of Linguistic Analysis

Modern grammar operates with a whole inventory of methods: Traditional method of putting questions or parsing a sentence into the main and secondary parts, Oppositional method which is broadly used paradigmatically and syntagmatically, .Distributional method, IC method (the method of immediate constituents – непосредственных составляющих), Transformational method, Deep and Surface structures method, Contextual method, method Componential analysis which is practically superimposed on any other method. Most of these methods are applicable both to morphology and syntax.

Parsing (Traditional Syntactic Analysis)

Parsing means dividing a sentence into the main and secondary parts by putting questions. This long-standing procedure proves at times inadequate (powerless, ineffective). Putting questions to the sentence People hate unreasonably we receive the following analysis Who? – people (the subject),What do they do? – hate {the predicate}, How? - unreasonably (an adverbial modifier of manner). Very often, in the structures carrying ambiguous parts or elements of ambiguous reference we can put more than one question to one and the same element. In the sentence He left the car with the girl. We can put 3 questions to the element underlined ( Whom did he leave the car with? What car did he leave? How did he leave the car?). In the sentence flying planes can be dangerous, putting the question What can be dangerous? we can answer either flying (a gerund) or planes . Flying turns out to be either a gerund, which functions as a subject, or a present participle, which functions as an attribute.

The same interpretation can be given to the sentence Visiting relatives can be a nuisance. (What? Which?).