Syntax (Part 2)

Yanti, Ph.D.
Course: Introduction to English Linguistics
Department: English Education
Review
Syntactic categories include:
• Lexical categories: (N), verb (V), adjective (Adj),
preposition (P), and adverb (Adv)
• Phrasal categories: NP, VP, AP, PP, and AdvP
• Functional categories: determiner (DET),
conjunctions (CONJ), and auxiliary (Aux).
Lexical categories
Provide some examples:
• Noun (N)
• Verb (V)
• Preposition (P)
• Adjective (Adj)
• Adverb (Adv)
Lexical categories
• Noun (N): kitten, boy, woman, shampoo, plate,
sincerity
• Verb (V): find, sleep, walk, realize, know, believe,
try, want
• Preposition (P): with, up, on, above, down, across,
below, over, without
• Adjective (Adj): red, big, hopeless, lucky, hectic,
candid, low, high
• Adverb (Adv): very, extremely, fairly, brightly,
always, again
Nouns
• Common nouns: dog, office, car, mountain
• Proper nouns: Noam Chomsky, Atma Jaya,
Jokowi, Indonesia

• Countable nouns: book(s), apartment(s),

table(s), parent(s)
• Uncountable nouns: corn, rice, water, salt
Verbs
• Action/event verbs: kick, build, cook, swim
• Stative (state or condition) verbs: love, hates,
believe, know, understand

• Intransitive verbs: cry, sleep, fall, smile, arrive

• Transitive verbs: take, hit, love, borrow, discuss
• Ditransitive verbs: put, give, tell
Phrasal categories
Provide some examples:
• Noun Phrase (NP)
• Verb Phrases (VP)
• Adjective Phrase (AdjP)
• Prepositional Phrase (PP)
• Adverbial Phrase (AdvP)
Phrasal categories
• Noun Phrase (NP): women, the girl with an
umbrella, those boxes
• Verb Phrases (VP): sees, always comes, often
visits his grandparents
• Adjective Phrase (AdjP): happy, extremely
beautiful, excited about going out
• Prepositional Phrase (PP): over the hill, in the
dark
• Adverbial Phrase (AdvP): brightly, more carefully,
more brightly than the sun.
Functional categories:
• Determiner (Det):
– this, that, these, those [demonstrative determiners]
– the, a, every, some, all, most [quantification determiners]
– your, our, his, my, her, their [possessive determiners]
• Conjunctions
– and, or, but
• Auxiliaries:
– modals: can, may, must
– Tense: future (will), be (is, am, are), have/has
Phrase structure rules in English
• S à NP VP
• NP à (Det) N
• VPà V (NP) (PP)

The girl put the book on the table

NP VP

NP à Det N
the girl
VP à V NP PP
put the book on the table
Tree diagram/Phrase structure tree
• Knowledge of the
constituent structure and
syntactic categories may
be graphically
represented by a tree
diagram or phrase
structure tree.
Tree diagram
• A tree diagram represents three aspects of a
speaker’s syntactic knowledge:
– The linear order of the words in the sentence
– The identification of the syntactic categories of
words and groups of words
– The hierarchical structure of the syntactic
categories (e.g., an S is composed of an NP
followed by a VP, a VP is composed of a V that
may be followed by an NP, and so on)
Tree diagram
• A tree diagram (or phrase structure tree) is an
explicit graphic representation of a speaker’s
knowledge of the structure of the sentences in his/her
language.
• A tree diagram shows that a sentence is both a linear
string of words and a hierarchical structure with
phrases nested in phrases.
• In a tree diagram each constituent of a sentence is
labeled according to its syntactic/grammatical
category.
Tree diagram & phrase structure rules
• Tree diagrams are generated based on phrase
structure rules:
– Phrase structure rules show relationship among elements in
a sentence.
– Phrase structure rules is a guide for building trees that
follow the structural constraints of the language (for
instance, the linear order).
– Phrase structure rules define the allowable structures of the
language à enable speakers to make predictions about the
structures that one may not have considered when
formulating each rule individually.
Linear order
• Linear order: the order of words in a sentence.
• Words in a sentence must occur in a particular sequence (they are organized
linearly):
(1) My neighbor sold his car.
(2) *My neighbor his car sold.
(3) *Sold my neighbor his car.
• Rules of word order is language-specific
(1) is OK in English and Indonesian à SVO
(2) is OK in Japanese à SOV
John-wa pan-o taberu
John-WA bread-O eat
‘John eats bread.’
(3) is OK in Celtic à VSO
Siaradodd Aled y Gymraeg
spoke Aled DEF Welsh
‘Aled spoke Welsh.’
Hierarchical structure
• Hierarchical structure: the structure of phrases that
constitute a sentence
• The structure of a sentence is hierarchical in the sense
that words that are in the same group will make a
constituent and that they have close relationship with
one another.
• Remember what is meant by a constituent?
Phrase structure: Heads & Complements

• Each constituent is a phrase that has a head, where

head is defined as ‘the obligatory nucleus around
which the phrase is built’.
– e.g., The puppy played in the garden.
NP VP
• A head may have a complement.
played in the garden: VP (the head is the verb)
the head ‘played’ is followed by a complement
• The type of the phrase is determined by the category
of the head.
Phrase structure: NP
Phrase structure: VP
The puppy played in the garden

S à NP VP
NP à Det N
VP à V PP
PP à P NP
NP à Det N
The children put the toy in the box
S à NP VP
NP à Det N
VP à V NP PP
NP à Det N
PP à P NP
NP à Det N
The professor hoped that the students
read the chapter
S à NP VP
NP à Det N
VP à V CP
CP à C S
S à NP VP
NP à Det N
VP à V NP
NP à Det N
CP = Complementizer Phrase
Phrase structure: Types and Heads
• What type of phrase is the following?
– Picture of the boys
– Ate the sandwich
– In the office
– Extremely hungry
– Very quickly

• What is the head of each phrase above?

Phrase structure rules
• Head-complement relationship is expressed by
phrase structure rules as listed below:
– NP à (Det) (AP) N (PP)
– VP à V (NP) (PP) (AdvP)
– PP à P NP
– AdjP à (AdvP) Adj (PP)
– AdvP à (AdvP) Adv

* Elements between brackets are optional

Exercise
• Draw a syntactic tree for each of the following
phrases:
1. The dogs
2. The brown cats on the roof
3. Sleep on the couch
4. Bought the book from John
5. A very difficult topic
6. In the very luxurious hotel
Exercise
• Draw a syntactic tree for each of the following
phrases:
1. The dogs: NP: Det N
2. The brown cats on the roof à NP: Det AdjP N PP
3. Sleep on the couch à VP: V PP
4. Bought the book from John à VP: V NP PP
5. A very difficult topic à NP: Det AdjP N
6. In the very luxurious hotel à PP: P NP
 Steps in drawing a tree diagram
The children put the toy in the box.
NP VP
The children (NP): (Det) (N)
put the toy in the box (VP): (V)
(NP) (PP)
 Steps in drawing a tree diagram
The girl laughed at the monkey.
NP VP
The girl (NP): (Det) (N)
laughed at the monkey (VP): (V) (PP)
Ambiguity
• Structural ambiguity
– The girl saw the man with a telescope.
– The burglar threatened the girl with a knife.
– We need more intelligent administrators.
• Lexical ambiguity
– We went down to the bank yesterday
– She is looking for a match.
Ambiguous sentences
The girl saw the man with a telescope.
1st interpretation:
The girl saw the man who had the telescope.
“with the telescope” modifies “man” and so needs to be
part of the NP.
2nd interpretation:
The girl used the telescope to see the man.
“with the telescope” modifies “see” and so needs to be
part of the VP.
Draw a syntactic tree for the following sentence:

I scratched the big dog with a stick.