語言學(xué)教程Chapter-4.-From-Wor課件

1、 Syntax is the study of the rules governing the ways different constituents are combined to form sentences in a language, or the study of the interrelationships between elements in sentence structures. Syntactic relations can be analysed into three kinds: relations of position relations of substitut

2、ability relations of co-occurrence For language to fulfill its communicative function, it must have a way to mark the grammatical roles of the various phrases that can occur in a clause. The boy kicked the ball NP1 NP2 Subject Object Positional relation, or WORD ORDER, refers to the sequential arran

3、gement of words in a language. If the words in a sentence fail to occur in a fixed order required by the convention of a language, one tends to produce an utterance either ungrammatical or nonsensical at all. For example, The boy kicked the ball *Boy the ball kicked the *The ball kicked the boy The

4、teacher saw the students The students saw the teacher Positional relations are a manifestation of one aspect of Syntagmatic Relations observed by F. de Saussure. They are also called Horizontal Relations or simply Chain Relations. Word order is among the three basic ways (word order, genetic and are

5、al classifications) to classify languages in the world: SVO, VSO, SOV, OVS, OSV, and VOS. English belongs to SVO type, though this does not mean that SVO is the only possible word order. The Relation of Substitutability refers to classes or sets of words substitutable for each other grammatically in

6、 sentences with the same structure. The _ smiles. man boy girl It also refers to groups of more than one word which may be jointly substitutable grammatically for a single word of a particular set.strong man The tallest boy smiles.pretty girl yesterday. He went therelast week. the day before. This i

7、s also called Associative Relations by Saussure, and Paradigmatic Relations by Hjemslev. To make it more understandable, they are called Vertical Relations or Choice Relations. It means that words of different sets of clauses may permit, or require, the occurrence of a word of another set or class t

8、o form a sentence or a particular part of a sentence. For instance, a nominal phrase can be preceded by a determiner and adjective(s) and followed by a verbal phrase. Relations of co-occurrence partly belong to syntagmatic relations, partly to paradigmatic relations. 2.1 Grammatical Construction Any

9、 syntactic string of words ranging from sentences over phrasal structures to certain complex lexemes. an apple ate an apple Mary ate an apple Constituent is a part of a larger linguistic unit. Several constituents together form a construction: the girl (NP) ate the apple (VP) the girl ate the apple

10、(S)The girl ate the apple S NP VPDet N V NP Det NThe girl ate the appleWord-levelPhrasalN=nounA=adjectiveV=verbP=prepositionDet=determinerAdv=adverbConj=conjunctionNP=noun phraseAP=adjective phraseVP=verb phrasePP=preposition phraseS=sentence or clause Bracketing is not as common in use, but it is a

11、n economic notation in representing the constituent/phrase structure of a grammatical unit. (The) (girl) (ate) (the) (apple) SNPDet TheN girlVPV ateNPDet theN apple Endocentric construction is one whose distribution is functionally equivalent to that of one or more of its constituents, i.e., a word

12、or a group of words, which serves as a definable centre or head. Usually noun phrases, verb phrases and adjective phrases belong to endocentric types because the constituent items are subordinate to the Head. .21 Exocentric construction refers to a group of syntactically related words where none of

13、the words is functionally equivalent to the group as a whole, that is, there is no definable “Centre” or “Head” inside the group, usually including the basic sentence, the prepositional phrase, the predicate (verb + object) construction, and the connective (be + complement) construction. The boy smi

14、led. (Neither constituent can substitute for the sentence structure as a whole.) He hid behind the door. (Neither constituent can function as an adverbial.) He kicked the ball. (Neither constituent stands for the verb-object sequence.) John seemed angry. (After division, the connective construction

15、no longer exists.) Endocentric constructions fall into two main types, depending on the relation between constituents: Coordination is a common syntactic pattern in English and other languages formed by grouping together two or more categories of the same type with the help of a conjunction such as

16、and, but and or . These two or more words or phrases or clauses have equivalent syntactic status, each of the separate constituents can stand for the original construction functionally. Coordination of NPs: NP the lady or NP the tiger Coordination of VPs: VP go to the library and VP read a book Coor

17、dination of PPs: PP down the stairs and PP out the door Coordination of APs: AP quite expensive and AP very beautiful Coordination of Ss: S John loves Mary and S Mary loves John too. Subordination refers to the process or result of linking linguistic units so that they have different syntactic statu

18、s, one being dependent upon the other, and usually a constituent of the other. The subordinate constituents are words which modify the head. Consequently, they can be called modifiers. two dogs Head (My brother) can drink (wine). Head Swimming in the lake (is fun). Head (The pepper was) hot beyond e

19、ndurance. Head Clauses can be used as subordinate constituents. There are three basic types of subordinate clauses: complement clauses adjunct (or adverbial) clauses relative clauses John believes that the airplane was invented by an Irishman. (complement clause) Elizabeth opened her presents before

20、 John finished his dinner. (adverbial clause) The woman that I love is moving to the south. (relative clause) The syntactic function shows the relationship between a linguistic form and other parts of the linguistic pattern in which it is used. Names of functions are expressed in terms of subjects,

21、objects, predicators, modifiers, complements, etc. In some languages, subject refers to one of the nouns in the nominative case. The typical example can be found in Latin, where subject is always in nominative case, such as pater and filius in the following examples. pater filium amat (the father lo

22、ves the son) patrum filius amat (the son loves the father) In English, the subject of a sentence is often said to be the agent, or the doer of the action, while the object is the person or thing acted upon by the agent. This definition seems to work for these sentences: Mary slapped John. A dog bit

23、Bill. but is clearly wrong in the following examples: John was bitten by a dog. John underwent major heart surgery. In order to account for the case of subject in passive voice, we have two other terms “grammatical subject” (John) and “l(fā)ogical subject” (a dog). Another traditional definition of the

24、subject is “what the sentence is about” (i.e., topic). Again, this seems to work for many sentences, such as Bill is a very crafty fellow. but fails in others, such as (Jack is pretty reliable, but) Bill I dont trust. As for Bill, I wouldnt take his promises very seriously. All three sentences seem

25、to be “about” Bill; thus we could say that Bill is the topic of all three sentences. The above sentences make it clear that the topic is not always the grammatical subject. What characteristics do subjects have? Subject ordinarily precedes the verb in the statement: Sally collects stamps. *Collects

26、Sally stamps. The first and third person pronouns in English appear in a special form when the pronoun is a subject, which is not used when the pronoun occurs in other positions: He loves me. I love him. We threw stones at them. They threw stones at us. In the simple present tense, an -s is added to

27、 the verb when a third person subject is singular, but the number and person of the object or any other element in the sentence have no effect at all on the form of the verb: She angers him. They anger him. She angers them. If the subject is replaced by a question word (who or what), the rest of the

28、 sentence remains unchanged, as in John stole the Queens picture from the British Council. Who stole the Queens picture from the British council? What would John steal, if he had the chance? What did John steal from the British Council? Where did John steal the Queens picture from? A tag question is

29、 used to seek confirmation of a statement. It always contains a pronoun which refers back to the subject, and never to any other element in the sentence. John loves Mary, doesnt he? Mary loves John, doesnt she? *John loves Mary, doesnt she? Predicate refers to a major constituent of sentence structu

30、re in a binary analysis in which all obligatory constituents other than the subject were considered together. It usually expresses actions, processes, and states that refer to the subject. The boy is running. (process) Peter broke the glass. (action) Jane must be mad! (state) The word predicator is

31、suggested for verb or verbs included in a predicate. Object is also a term hard to define. Since, traditionally, subject can be defined as the doer of the action, object may refer to the “receiver” or “goal” of an action, and it is further classified into Direct Object and Indirect Object. Mother bo

32、ught a doll. Mother gave my sister a doll. IO DO In some inflecting languages, object is marked by case labels: the accusative case for direct object, and the dative case for indirect object. In English, “object” is recognized by tracing its relation to word order (after the verb and preposition) an

33、d by inflections (of pro-nouns). Mother gave a doll to my sister. John kicked me. Modern linguists suggest that object refers to such an item that it can become subject in a passive transformation. John broke the glass. The glass was broken by John. Peter saw Jane. Jane was seen by Peter. Although t

34、here are nominal phrases in the following, they are by no means objects because they cannot be transformed into passive voice. He died last week. The match lasted three hours. He changed trains at Manchester. (*Trains were changed by him at Manchester.) The term category refers to the defining prope

35、rties of these general units: Categories of the noun: number, gender, case and countability Categories of the verb: tense, aspect, voice Number is a grammatical category used for the analysis of word classes displaying such contrasts as singular, dual, plural, etc. In English, number is mainly obser

36、ved in nouns, and there are only two forms: singular and plural, such as dog: dogs. Number is also reflected in the inflections of pronouns and verbs, such as He laughs: They laugh, this man: these men. In other languages, for example, French, the manifestation of number can also be found in adjecti

37、ves and articles. le cheval royal (the royal horse) les chevaux royaux (the royal horses) Such contrasts as “masculine : feminine : neuter”, “animate : inanimate”, etc. for the analysis of word classes. Though there is a correlation between natural gender and grammatical gender, the assignment may s

38、eem quite arbitrary in many cases. For instance, in Latin, ignis fire is masculine, while flamma flame is feminine. English gender contrast can only be observed in pronouns and a small number of nouns, and, they are mainly of the natural gender type. he: she: it prince: princess author: authoress In

39、 French, gender is manifested also both in adjectives and articles. beau cadeau (fine gift) belle maison (fine house) Le cadeau est beau. (The gift is good.) La maison est belle. (The house is beautiful.) Sometimes gender changes the lexical meaning as well, for example, in French: le poele (the sto

40、ve) la poele (the frying pan) le pendule (the pendulum) la pendule (the clock) The case category is used in the analysis of word classes to identify the syntactic relationship between words in a sentence. In Latin grammar, cases are based on variations in the morphological forms of the word, and are

41、 given the terms “accusative”, “nominative”, “dative”, etc. There are five cases in ancient Greek and eight in Sanskrit. Finnish has as many as fifteen formally distinct cases in nouns, each with its own syntactic function. In English, case is a special form of the noun which frequently corresponds

42、to a combination of preposition and noun, and it is realized in three channels: inflection following a preposition word order as manifested in teacher : teachers with : to a man John kicked Peter : Peter kicked John Agreement (or concord) may be defined as the requirement that the forms of two or mo

43、re words of specific word classes that stand in specific syntactic relationship with one another shall also, be characterized by the same paradigmatically marked category (or categories). This syntactic relationship may be anaphoric, as when a pronoun agrees with its antecedent, Whose is this pen? -

44、Oh, its the one I lost. or it may involve a relation between a head and its dependent, as when a verb agrees with its subject and object: Each person may have one coin. Agreement of number between nouns and verbs: This man runs. The bird flies. These men run. These birds fly.SentenceClausePhraseWord

45、 the three tallest girls (nominal phrase) has been doing (verbal phrase) extremely difficult(adjectival phrase) to the door (prepositional phrase) very fast (adverbial phrase)ClauseFiniteNon-finiteInfinitive Participial Gerundial Subject ObjectAdverbialRelativeAppositionalComplement The best thing w

46、ould be to leave early. Its great for a man to be free. Having finished their task, they came to help us. John being away, Bill had to do the work. Filled with shame, he left the house. All our savings gone, we started looking for jobs. Its no use crying over spilt milk. Do you mind my opening the w

47、indow?simple Sentencecomplexnon-simple compound Yes/no Interrogative Indicative wh- DeclarativeSentence Jussive Imperative Optative Mother fell. (Nominal + intransitive verbal) Mother is young. (Nominal + copula + complement) Mother loves Dad. (Nominal + transitive verbal + nominal). Mother fed Dad

48、breakfast. (Nominal + transitive verbal + nominal + nominal) There is time. (There + existential + nominal) SVC Mary is kind. a nurse. SVA Mary is here. in the house. SV The child is laughing. SVO Somebody caught the ball. SVOC We have proved him wrong. a fool. SVOA I put the plate on the table. SVO

49、O She gives me expensive presents. Recursiveness mainly means that a phrasal constituent can be embedded within another constituent having the same category, but it has become an umbrella term such important linguistic phenomena as coordination and subordination, conjoining and embedding, hypotactic

50、 and paratactic. All these are means to extend sentences. How long can a sentence be? Theoretically, there is no limit to the embedding of one relative clause into another relative clause, so long as it does not become an obstacle to successful communication. The same holds true for nominal clauses

51、and adverbial clauses. I met a man who had a son whose wife sold cookies that she had baked in her kitchen that was fully equipped with electrical appliances that were new Johns sister Johns sisters husband Johns sisters husbands uncle Johns sisters husbands uncles daughter, etc. that house in Beijing the garden of that house in Beijing the tree in the garden of that house in Beijing a bird on the tree in the garden of that house in Beijing Conjoining: coordination. Conjunctions: and, but, and or. John bou