Le, H.T., Dang, D.T., & Tran, H.P.

– A Grammar of the English language

IMMEDIATE CONSTITUENT GRAMMAR

In describing the structure of sentences, words are not the only units that
we need. Although we can break a sentence down into a sequence of words,
we will not go from sentence to word in a single step but will recognize units
intermediate in size between sentence and word. One of the most widely used
techniques for displaying sentence structure in this direction is the use of
immediate constituent (IC) analysis. This approach works through the
different levels of structure within a sentence in a series of steps. At each
level, a construction is divided into its major constituents, and the process
continues until no further divisions can be made. For example, to make an IC
analysis of the sentence ‘The girl chased the dog’ we carry out the following
steps:
1. Identify the two major constituents, the girl and chased the dog.
2. Divide the next-biggest constituent into two, viz. chased the dog
into chased and the dog.
3. Continue dividing constituents into two until we can go no further,
viz. the girl and the dog into the + girl, the + dog, and chased into
chase + -ed ending.

The order of segmentation can be summarized using lines or brackets. If

the first cut is symbolized by a single vertical line, the second cut by two
lines, and so on, the sentence would look like this:

the /// girl / chase /// -ed // the /// dog

However, a much clearer way of representing a constituent structure is

through the use of 'tree diagrams':

Le, Dang, & Tran (2015) A Grammar of the English language. ĐH HN Page 1
Le, H.T., Dang, D.T., & Tran, H.P. – A Grammar of the English language

The girl chased the dog

The girl chased the dog

IC grammar is based on the argument that different elements of language

do not belong to the same layer; they belong to different layers and create
different meanings. You can see this more clearly in the following analyses of
the two sentences ‘He likes pleasing women’ and ‘More beautiful girls are
coming’. The sentences can be analyzed in two different ways and
consequently have different meanings:

(A) (B)

He likes pleasing women He likes pleasing women

Analysis (A) results in that the sentence means that ''he'' likes women
who know how to please other people (and him), whereas analysis (B) gives
the sentence a different meaning: what 'he' likes is to please women. In the
same way, ‘More beautiful girls are coming’ can either mean the girls who
are coming are more beautiful than the girls present, or the girls present are
beautiful and the girls who are coming are also beautiful without a
comparison.

Le, Dang, & Tran (2015) A Grammar of the English language. ĐH HN Page 2
Le, H.T., Dang, D.T., & Tran, H.P. – A Grammar of the English language

Representations of structure like these are very helpful, as far as they go.
But not all sentences are as easy to analyze in IC terms as these ones. It is
sometimes not clear where the cuts should be made (e.g., whether to divide
the three old men into the + three old men or the three old + men, or the three
+ old men). More important, the process of segmenting individual sentences
does not take us very far in understanding the grammar of a language. IC
analyses do not inform us about the identity of the sentence elements they
disclose, nor do they provide a means of showing how sentences relate to
each other grammatically (as with statements and questions, actives and
passives). To develop a deeper understanding of grammatical structure,
alternative approaches must be used.

Le, Dang, & Tran (2015) A Grammar of the English language. ĐH HN Page 3