LINGUISTICS 2

ORIENTATION
LINGUISTICS 2 OVERVIEW

45 periods / 15 weeks

Syntax + Semantics
Lecturer: Nguyen Le Bao Ngoc
Contact info:
Email: nlbngoc@hcmiu.edu.vn
Phone: 0938348411
LINGUISTICS 2 OVERVIEW

Attendance: 5%
Mini test: 20%
Midterm test: 20%
Final test: 55%
TEXTBOOK
Syntax: Semantics:
 Phonetics and Phonology
• The study of sounds

Morphology
• The study of word structures
CORE
LINGUISTI Syntax
CS • The study of ways in which words are combined into larger
structures

Semantics
• The study of meaning

Pragmatics
• The study of meaning in particular context
 Sociolinguistics
• The study of language and society

Stylistics
• The study of language and literature
APPLIED
LINGUISTI Psycholinguistics
CS • The study of language and mind

Computational linguistics
• The simulation of language by the use of computers

Comparative linguistics
• The study of different languages and their respective linguistic
systems
WHAT IS SYNTAX?

Syntax is a description of the way words are put together to

make larger units such as phrases, clauses and sentences.
Syntax tries to describe the order of subject and verb, the
position of modal auxiliaries, objects, complements and
modifiers.
WHAT WILL BE COVERED?

 Sentence structure: constituents, functions and categories

Verb phrases, adverbials and other matters
Noun phrases
Clauses and sentences
SENTENCE STRUCTURES

Constituents
Functions
Categories
SENTENCE STRUCTURES

Structure is the central study of syntax

Hierarchical structure
Syntactic structure
Tree diagram
HIERARCHICAL STRUCTURE
SYNTACTIC STRUCTURE
In dealing with syntactic structure, we are doing THREE things
1. analysing linguistics expression into constituents
2. identifying the categories of those constituents
3. determining their functions
SENTENCE STRUCTURES

Sentences do not consist of words, they consist of

phrases.
Sequences of words that can function as constituents
in the structure of sentences are called phrases.
What is a constituent?
SENTENCE STRUCTURES

Old Sam sunbathed beside a road.

If a sequence of words in a sentence can be replaced
by a single word without changing the overall
structure of the sentence, that sequence is functioned
as a constituent of the sentence, and is therefore a
phrase.
SENTENCE STRUCTURES

Syntactic tree diagrams are called: PHRASE

MARKERS
SENTENCE STRUCTURES

FUNCTIONS CATEGORIES
SENTENCE STRUCTURES:
FUNCTIONS
Subject and Predicate
Modifier
Complement
SUBJECT AND PREDICATE
Subject Predicate
Tom is going to school.
The man who lives next door is Susan’s boyfriend.
Why he told lie made everyone wonder.
The pencils in the box under the bed were found by the little girl.

A well-formed sentence:
Subject + Predicate
WHICH CAN BE COMBINED TO MAKE
WELL-FORMED SENTENCES?
a. remind me of you
b. as quickly as he could Subjects = NPs
Predicates = VPs
c. soggy chips
d. pamphlets advertising new syntactic theories
e. by the end of this week
f. suddenly rained from the sky
g. are in demand
c+ a / c + f / c+g / d+a / d+ f/ d+g
PRACTICE
B&C: sisters
B&C: daughters of A
A: mother of B&C
HEAD
The head of a phrase is the element that the phrase is centered on. It is
the one essential – OBLIGATORY – element in that phrase.
It’s the category of the head of a phrase that determines the category of
the phrase.
Head Category
N NP
V VP
A AP
Adv AdvP
P PP

Example?
PRACTICE
Finding the head of the following phrases
1. The hot boiling water
2. Have never been to me
3. Under the sea
4. Very quickly
5. Much quicker
6. Know the woman you have been talking about lately
THE MODIFIER-HEAD RELATION
Look at the following example:
Two rather dubious jokes
COMPARE?

√
x

x
THE COMPLEMENT-HEAD
RELATION
Look at the following phrases:
1. do homework
2. under the table
3. give Mary some flowers

Decide which one is the head in each phrase?

THE COMPLEMENT-HEAD
RELATION
Compare:
sleep soundly modifier
do homework complement
Can you omit:
o“soundly”?
When a head demands a further expression, that
o“homework”? further (obligatory) expression is said to
complement the head
PRACTICE

1. The phrase “more exciting ideas” is ambiguous.

Draw the phrase markers to show the difference and
explain your analysis for each marker.
PRACTICE
PRACTICE

2. Decide whether the constituent in brackets are

modifiers or complements?
PRACTICE

3. Draw the phrase markers for the following phrases

A. young car salesmen
B. second-hand car salesmen
SENTENCE STRUCTURES:
CATEGORIES
Noun and Noun Phrase (N & NP)
Adjective and Adjective Phrase (A & AP)
Adverb and Adverb Phrase (Adv & AdvP)
Preposition and Preposition Phrase (P & PP)
Verb and Verb Phrase (V & VP)