Lecture 14. The Word-Group.

1.1. Basic Approaches to syntactic analysis.

Syntax deals with the way words are combined. It is concerned with the external functions of words and their relationship to other words within the linearly ordered units – word-groups, sentences and texts. Syntax studies the way in which the units and their meanings are combined. It also deals with peculiarities of syntactic units, their behavior in different contexts. Syntactic units may be analyzed from different points of view, and accordingly, different syntactic theories exist:

1) Transformational-Generative Grammar. This theory was first suggested by the American scholar Zelling Harris as a method of analyzing sentences and was later elaborated and popularized by another American scholar Noam Chomsky as a synthetic method of generating (constructing) sentences.

Chomsky postulated a syntactic base of language (deep structure), which consists of a series of phrase-structure rewrite rules, i.e., a series of (possibly universal) rules that generates the underlying phrase-structure of a sentence, and a series of rules (called transformations) that act upon the phrase-structure to form more complex sentences. The end result of a transformational-generative grammar is a surface structure that, after the addition of words and pronunciations, is identical to an actual sentence of a language. All languages have the same deep structure, but they differ from each other in surface structure because of the application of different rules for transformations, pronunciation, and word insertion. Another important distinction made in transformational-generative grammar is the difference between language competence (the subconscious control of a linguistic system) and language performance (the speaker's actual use of language).

2) Constructional Syntax. Constructional analysis of syntactic units was initiated by Prof. G.Pocheptsov (1971). This analysis deals with the constructional significance/insignificance of a part of the sentence for the whole syntactic unit. The theory is based on the obligatory or optional environment of syntactic elements. For example, the element him in the sentence I saw him there yesterday is constructionally significant because it is impossible to omit it. At the same time the elements there and yesterday are constructionally insignificant – they can be omitted without destroying the whole structure.

3) Communicative Syntax. It is primarily concerned with the analysis of utterances from the point of their communicative value and informative structure. It deals with the actual division of the utterance – the theme and rheme analysis. Both the theme and the rheme constitute the informative structure of utterances.

4) Pragmatic approach to the study of syntactic units can be described as the study of the way language is used in particular contexts to achieve particular goals.

5) Speech Act Theory was first introduced by John Austin. The notion of a speech act presupposes that an utterance can be said with different intentions or purposes and therefore can influence the speaker and situation in different ways:

6) Textlinguistics studies the text as a syntactic unit, its main features and peculiarities, different ways of its analysis.

7) Discourse analysis focuses on the study of language use with reference to the social and psychological factors that influence communication.