Unit 1:

SENTENCE STRUCTURES –
CONSTITUENTS
Week 2
MAIN CONTENTS

1. Structure

2. Establishing Constituents

3. “Phrase” and “constituent”

1. STRUCTURE
Can you name main
branches of linguistics
concerned with the
structure of language?
1. STRUCTURE

English syntax is about the study of the STRUCTURE of

English phrases and sentences

1. STRUCTURE

Some features of the STRUCTURE of English phrases and sentences

(a) It is divisible into parts (its CONSTITUENTS) /kənˈstɪtʃ.u.ənt/

(b) There are different kinds of parts (different CATEGORIES of constituents)

(c) The constituents are ARRANGED in a certain way

(d) Each constituent has a specifiable FUNCTION

1. STRUCTURE
 1. STRUCTURE

Similar to linguistic expressions:

• Only certain word sequences or structures are acceptable and are called grammatical
(or well-formed).

• Others are ungrammatical (or ill-formed) phrases or sentences

(marked with an asterisk (*) /ˈæs.tər.ɪsk/)

E.g. * disappears none girls of the students

Max will bought a frying pans.

1. STRUCTURE

TREE DIAGRAMS are often used to

describe how sentences or phrases are
analyzed into constituent parts and the
relationships between the parts.

=>Syntax involves studying

HIERARCHICAL STRUCTURE
/ˌhaɪəˈrɑː.kɪ.kəl/ of sentences.
 1. STRUCTURE

IMMEDIATE CONSTITUENTS are

constituents under direct
relationships to construct a system.
1. STRUCTURE

Specifying FUNCTION of
constituents is important to
structural analysis.
1. STRUCTURE

Which of the following tree diagrams best represents the structural

relationship between bicycle and spoke just discussed?
1. STRUCTURE

In dealing with SYNTACTIC STRUCTURE, we will be doing three things:

(a) analyzing linguistic expressions into their CONSTITUENTS

(b) identifying the CATEGORIES of those constituents

(c) determining their FUNCTIONS

1. STRUCTURE

This lesson will be mainly concerned with CONSTITUENCY

Think about the following questions:

• What do sentences consist of?

• Are words the IMMEDIATE CONSTITUENTS of the sentences that

contain them?
1. STRUCTURE

If words are immediate constituents of a sentence, the diagram of a

sentence like: “Old Sam sunbathed beside a stream” will look like this:

* Stream old Sam sunbathed beside a

* Sunbathed old beside stream a Sam
1. STRUCTURE

• Words are not immediate constituents of the sentence

• Words belong with other words to form groups – PHRASES – which

have their own position in the structure of the sentence.

• Phrases (or further phrases made up of these phrases) that function as

immediate constituents of the sentence.

 While sentences certainly contain words, they don’t consist of words.

They consist of phrases.
1. STRUCTURE

• How words are grouped together into phrases are determined by their
CATEGORIES

(which will be discussed in the next chapters, esp. Chapter 3)

• Information about GRAMMATICAL CATEGORIES is also included in

tree diagrams.

• Tree diagrams also reveal the FUNCTIONS of words and phrases in

sentences.
2. ESTABLISHING CONSTITUENTS
2. ESTABLISHING CONSTITUENTS

How do we recognize constituents in a sentence?

There are certain things that only constituents can:
• Move (or change positions in a sentence)
• Be deleted
• Be coordinated
• Be substituted
2. ESTABLISHING CONSTITUENTS

Constituents
Test

The Movement/
Coordination The Sense
Omission Substitution Question Transposition
Test Test
Test Test
2.1. OMISSION

Remove each word from the end of a sentence and check if the
remaining expressions are grammatical or not.

E.g. Old Sam sunbathed beside a stream

(1) Old Sam sunbathed beside a
(2) Old Sam sunbathed beside
(3) Old Sam sunbathed
(4) Old Sam
(5) Old
2.1. OMISSION

E.g. Old Sam sunbathed beside a stream

(3) Old Sam sunbathed

• We can delete certain parts of a sentence without harming the grammaticality of the
remaining expression.

• These parts are optional.

• We can only delete the sequence of words as a whole, not individual words.

E.g. We can delete beside a stream as a whole, not beside, a, stream alone

 beside a stream is a constituent, or a phrase.

2.1. OMISSION

• Phrase is the sequences of words that can function as constituents in

the structure of sentences.

• Tree diagrams represent structure by marking which sequences of

words in a sentence are its constituent phrases.

• Tree diagrams are also called Phrase markers.

• A phrase is intermediate between a sentence and its words

2.1. OMISSION - PRACTICE
In the following sentence, there are two separate sequences of words which can be
omitted without affecting the grammaticality of the sentence. Can you identify them?

The very talkative gentleman next to me lit a cigar.

The (…) gentleman (…) lit a cigar.

very talkative and next to me are

• optional constituents in the sentence.

• phrases intermediate between sentence and word.

• immediate constituents not of the sentence but of further phrases.

2.2. SUBSTITUTION/ REPLACEMENT BY A SINGLE WORD

If we can replace a sequence of words in a sentence with a single word

without changing overall structure of the sentence

That sequence functions as a constituent of the sentence

It is a phrase

E.g. We can replace beside a stream by here, there, or somewhere

Old Sam sunbathed here/there/somewhere.

2.2. SUBSTITUTION/ REPLACEMENT BY A SINGLE WORD

Other examples:
E.g1. Barbara handed the intriguing results of the latest
examination to Alan on Tuesday.
Barbara handed them to Alan on Tuesday.
E.g.2. This large parcel is very heavy.
No, it's not.
It is so.
E.g.3. Vera is crocheting in the lounge.
Vera is crocheting there.
E.g.4. The cat trotted in the kitchen.
The cat trotted in.
2.3. THE QUESTION TEST

E.g. Where did old Sam sunbathe?

Beside a stream.

Who ate the sandwiches?

The students. *Students ate the.

What did the students do?

Ate the sandwiches. * Ate the.

2.4. THE MOVEMENT/ TRANSPOSITION TEST

The movement of a sequence of words in forming a construction

indicates that the sequence is a phrase.

E.g. Old Sam sunbathed beside a stream.

Beside a stream, old Sam sunbathed.

2.5. COORDINATION TEST

We can conclude that a group of words forms a constituent if it can be

joined to another group of words by a conjunction such as and, or, but.

Old Sam sunbathed beside a stream.

E.g. Old Sam and Baby Peter sunbathed beside a stream.

2.5. COORDITIONA TEST

Old Sam sunbathed beside a stream.

Which tree diagram best represents the structure of beside a stream?

2.6. THE SENSE TEST

Phrases form not only syntactic units (constituents in the structural form
of sentences) but also semantic units.

Phrases form coherent units of sense.

2. ESTABLISHING CONSTITUENTS

Constituents
Test

The Movement/
Coordination The Sense
Omission Substitution Question Transposition
Test Test
Test Test
3. “PHRASE” AND “CONSTITUENT”
3. “PHRASE” AND “CONSTITUENT”

A phrase is a sequence of words that can function as a constituent in

the structure of sentences.

Beside a stream, a stream, and old Sam can function as constituents in

the previous example, but probably not in other sentences.

3. “PHRASE” AND “CONSTITUENT”

E.g. Though he was old Sam did regular press-ups.

Using the substitution test:

*Though he was someone did regular press-ups.
*Though he was who did regular press-ups?
3. “PHRASE” AND “CONSTITUENT”

• Hierarchical sentence structure is abstract.

• Your understanding of particular word-sequences is matter of how you

structure them in your mind.

• That’s why syntax is interesting.

• That’s why we need to construct physical (graphic) phrase markers to

represent these abstract mental structures.
3. “PHRASE” AND “CONSTITUENT”

Consider this sentence:

[33] Sam sunbathed beside a stream that had dried up.

Is a stream that had dried up a constituent in this sentence?

3. “PHRASE” AND “CONSTITUENT”

Draw a phrase marker for this sequence

beside a stream that had dried up.
3. “PHRASE” AND “CONSTITUENT”

Does the sequence beside a stream form a constituent in this sentence? Why?
[33] Sam sunbathed beside a stream that had dried up.
3. “PHRASE” AND “CONSTITUENT”

What’s wrong with this diagram?

3. “PHRASE” AND “CONSTITUENT”

• Any point in a phrase marker that could branch and bear a label is called a
node.

In phrase marker [34], there are two nodes: Phrase-a and Phrase-b.
3. “PHRASE” AND “CONSTITUENT”

• A node is said to dominate everything that appears below it and joined

to it by a line.
3. “PHRASE” AND “CONSTITUENT”

A node is said to immediately dominate another element when there are

no intervening nodes.
3. “PHRASE” AND “CONSTITUENT”
3. “PHRASE” AND “CONSTITUENT”

• In a phrase marker, a sequence of elements is represented as a

constituent if there is a node that dominates all those elements and no
others.

• In other words, if you can trace just the elements under consideration
(i.e. ALL & ONLY those elements) up to a single node, then those
elements are represented as a constituent (a phrase)
3. “PHRASE” AND “CONSTITUENT”

Consider the following sentence:

[36] Heseltine asked how old Sam was.

Does the sequence old Sam function as a constituent in this sentence?

3. “PHRASE” AND “CONSTITUENT”

Consider the following sentence:

[36] Heseltine asked how old Sam was.

Identify the two meanings of [36].

[a] How old is Sam?
[b] How is old Sam?
3. “PHRASE” AND “CONSTITUENT”

• How deciding what phrases there are in a sentence is a crucial part of

deciding the meaning of that sentence.

• Deciding whether a sequence of words forms a phrase in a sentence

also depends on whether that sequence forms a coherent unit of
sense.