Bài giảng cú pháp học tiếng anh dành cho hệ đại học

In English, for example, the subject comes before the verb and the direct object follows the verb.. In Lakhota a Siouan language of North America, on the other hand, the subject and dire

PREFACE

One important aspect of teaching English syntax (to native and nonnative undergraduate students alike) involves the balance in the overall approach between facts and theory We understand that one important goal of teaching English syntax to undergraduate students is to help students enhance their understanding of the structure of English in a systematic and scientific way Basic knowledge of this kind is essential for students to move on the next stages, in which they will be able to perform linguistic analyses for simple as well as complex English phenomena This new introductory textbook has been developed with this goal in mind The book focuses primarily on the descriptive facts of English syntax, presented in a way that encourages students to develop keen insights into the English data It then proceeds with the basic, theoretical concepts of generative grammar from which students can develop abilities to think, reason, and analyze English sentences from linguistic points of view

TABLE OF CONTENTS

STRUCTURES OF THE CLAUSE 7

REFERENCES

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION TO SYNTAX

I LIGUISTICS AND SYNTAX

SYNTAX is the central component of human language Language has often been characterized as the systematic correlation between certain types of oral/graphic forms for spoken/written language; and, for signed language, they are manual

It is not the case that every possible meaning that can be expressed is correlated with a unique, analyzable form Rather, each language has a stock of meaning-bearing elements and differentways

un-of combining them to express different meanings, and these ways un-of combining them are themselves meaningful The two English sentences Chris gave the notebook to Dana and Dana gave the notebook to Chris contain exactly the same meaning-bearing elements, i.e words, but they have different meanings because the words are combined differently in them These different combinations fall into the realm of syntax; the two sentences differ not in terms of the words in them but rather in terms of their syntax

II SYNTAX AND GRAMMAR

The Difference

Grammar is the study of rules governing the use of language In linguistics, grammar is the set

of structural rules that governs the composition of clauses, phrases, and words in any given natural language The set of rules governing a particular language is the grammar of that language; thus, each language can be said to have its own distinct grammar Grammar is part of the general study

of language called linguistics Grammar is a way of thinking about language Grammar consists of

set rules regarding language and sentence structure, such as no splitting infinitives and no hanging prepositions

Syntax is how a sentence is worded and structured In Linguistics syntax is “the study of the

principles and processes by which sentences are constructed in particular languages” It consists of the type of sentence (Declarative, Interrogative, Exclamatory, and Imperative) and word order (passive vs active voice) It also refers to length of sentences (short vs long)

Syntax can be used as a literary device to add extra meaning to your sentences, whereas grammar adds no greater meaning to your sentences

Example: “His long-held wish was to walk slowly through the tortuous mountain paths that his grandfather had carved out of the earth many years ago”

Syntax would refer to the sentence being declarative: stating a wish that the boy had It would also refer to the length of the sentence mimicking the long twisted paths in the mountain and the long time the boy had been wishing to walk them

Grammar would refer to not splitting the infinitive: “to walk slowly” rather than “to slowly walk” and subject-verb agreement

Syntax has literary meaning and use, while Grammar just shows good form They are two

different things that can be easily confused

“Syntax is the study of the principles and processes by which sentences are constructed in

particular languages Syntactic investigation of a given language has as its goal the construction

of a grammar that can be viewed as a device of some sort for producing the sentences of the language under analysis.”

(Noam Chomsky, Syntactic Structures, 1971)

Syntax? Grammar?

Syntax is simply the way words are organized structurally This can be either grammatically correct or incorrect, it is still syntax Sometimes, in a grammatical analysis, linguists might refer to

an ‘underlying syntax’, which would be a normalized structure of the words in a sentence, and not necessarily the actual structure used The word order ‘noun (subject)- verb- noun (object)’ would

be a simple example of syntax The order “Come here!” would be analyzed as having the explicit syntax ‘verb- adverb’, but might be analyzed as having the underlying syntax of ‘noun (subject)- verb- adverb’, as in “(‘You’- implied) come here”

Grammar refers to the sets of rules that are used regarding HOW syntax should be structured This

is typically divided into proscriptive grammar (dictating/enforcing arbitrary rules for how to

‘correctly’ organize a sentence) or descriptive grammar (an analysis of how speakers ACTUALLY structure the language) Some examples of grammar would be the rule “the verb should always follow the subject”, or ” the ‘to’ in an infinitive verb construction must always be followed immediately by the verb”

Grammar might also have a relatively larger scope, since it would include the rules for any lexical variations (differences in spelling of the same base word), as well as rules for capitalization, punctuation, etc Syntax usually involves only the structure of various TYPES of words in relation

to one another (although some semantic analyses might be more specific than others)

Syntax: The way in which words are put together to form phrases, clauses, or sentences

Grammar: the set of rules that explain how words are used in a language ( ex Tenses in English)

Grammar also is the framework of a language It is a study or science that has two parts: morphology (the forms of words) and syntax (the combination of words into sentences)

Syntax deals with their functions in sentences – subjects, objects, attributes etc

Example: “To know you is to love you.”

To know, to love are both verbs (infinitives) – (morphology)

But they have different functions: to know is the subject, to love is part of the predicate – (syntax)

In short, syntax is HOW words are structured; grammar is WHY they are structured that way

Grammar is a little more encompassing that syntax with respect to language Grammar also takes into account the way in which sentences should be read For example, recursive grammar is the application of an explanatory clause within a matrix clause in a sentence It is also interesting to note that syntax only refers to organization about the horizontal axis; that is, how words are strung together to form sentences Organization about the vertical axis, or paradigmatic organization, refers to the way in which words can be interchanged in a sentence In English, which is a word order language, one could say, “I love you.” It is also correct to say, “I love him.” This is an example of paradigmatic organization

Both grammar and syntax are usually focused at the level of words-in-sentences (a level above

pronunciation, a level below prose-style) but can spill over into these and other subfields Grammar

and syntax are the knowledge of making a good phrase, clause, and absolutely in making a correct sentence Both of them are very closely related They are bound tightly in making a correct sentence

Both “grammar” and “syntax” are used in a abstract way, and also to refer to the structure of a single language, and in either case “syntax” is a subset of “grammar” In addition “grammar” is used in a different way, to mean the prescriptive grammar of a language”

III DEFINITIONS TO SYNTAX

Syntax is the study of the structure of phrases, clauses and sentences In other words, syntax is the study of how words are combined to produce sentences

Syntax can thus be given the following characterization, taken from Matthews (1982:1):

The term ‘syntax’ is from the Ancient Greek syn - taxis, a verbal noun which literally means

‘arrangement’ or ‘setting out together’ Traditionally, it refers to the branch of grammar dealing with the ways in which words, with or without appropriate inflections, are arranged to show connections of meaning within the sentence

First and foremost, syntax deals with how sentences are constructed, and users of human languages employ a striking variety of possible arrangements of the elements in sentences

One of the most obvious yet important ways in which languages differ is the order of the main elements in a sentence In English, for example, the subject comes before the verb and the direct object follows the verb In Lakhota (a Siouan language of North America), on the other hand, the subject and direct object both precede the verb, while in Toba Batak (an Austronesian language of Indonesia; (Schachter 1984b), they both follow the verb

In Lakhota, the subject comes first followed by the direct object, whereas in Toba Batak the subject comes last in the sentence, with the direct object following the verb and preceding the subject The basic word order in Toba Batak is thus the opposite of that in Lakhota There are also languages in which the order of words is normally irrelevant to the interpretation of which element is subject and which is object

To make clear the meaning, of syntax, let us clarify three aspects involved

1 Categories

Words in a language are organised into different categories, or in traditional terms, parts of speech Categories may be lexical e.g Nouns (N), Verbs (V), Adjective (A), Prepositions (P), Adverbs (Adv) or non-lexical e.g Determiners (Det.), Auxiliaries (Aux.), Conjunctions (Conj), Degree words (Deg) or Phrasals e.g Noun phrases, Verb phrases, Adjective phrases, Preposition (al) phrases, Adverb phrases

The theory is that every phrasal category contains at least one lexical category of the same basic type For example, every NP contains at least a N; every VP contains at least a V and so on Conversely, every lexical category belongs to a phrasal category of the same basic type: every N belong to a NP, and so on

2 Phrase structure

Phrase structure is the division of a sentence into part, or constituents, and the division of those

constituents into subparts For instance, the sentence The bear went over the mountain is made up

of two main constituents: The bear and went over the mountain The second constituent is, in turn

divided into two parts, went and over the mountain, which is divided even further, into over and

the mountain All sentences have such hierarchical structure, even a very simple two-word

sentence like Carol giggled

The elements (constituents) in a phrase structure are governed by phrase structure (PS) rules

which specify the left - to - right ordering of elements, whether the elements ate optional or obligatory

We have some P.S rules:

PP  Pre + N

Elements in the sentences ate governed not only by categories and constituent structure but also

by subcategorization Subcategorization means the classification of words in terms of their complements option Subcategorization interacts with the PS rules to ensure that lexical items appear in the appropriate types of structures

For example:

The verb “arrive” requites no complements

E.g He’s arrived

The verb “become” needs an adjective or a noun as complements

E.g He’s become an engineer

The adjective “tall” does not need a complement

E.g He is tall

The adjective “interested” requires a PP

E.g He is interested in music

There are four ways to determine phrase structures:

One approach to determining phrase structure is substitution test: Whatever you can substitute

a single word for, preserving grammaticality is a constituent or phrase, that is, a “chunk” and whatever cannot be substituted for is not In The bear went over the mountain, we can easily find

one-word substitutions for the bear As a result, we can have new sentences like Max went over the

mountain, He went over the mountain, Tigers went over the mountain The substitution need not

preserve meaning, just grammatical sentence The new sentences created by the substitution for

The bear meet the test, so we can conclude that in the original sentence The bear is a constituent

Now let's look at some other word sequences in the bear went over the mountain How about

bear went? There don't seem to be any single-word substitutions for it The results of substitutions such as smoke, green, it for bear went aren't grammatical sentences; and since no substitution

seems possible for bear went, we can conclude that it isn't a constituent in the bear went over the

mountain Constituents can he longer than two words For went over the mountain in The bear

went over the mountain we can substitute any single intransitive verb or any transitive verb whose

direct object can be optionally omitted: The bear slept, The bear awoke, The bear ate

A second criterion for finding constituents is the ability of constituents to “move” For example, “The bear went over the mountain” we can move “over the mountain” to the front

position in the sentence: Over the mountain the bear went We can move a word sequence in a

different place Note that the movement criterion, since it relies in paraphrase, requires keeping the meaning the same, unlike the substitution criterion

A third test for “constituency” is whether the word sequence in question can be conjoined with

a similar sequence In The bear went over the mountain, all constituency” can be:

a The bear and the mouse went over the mountain

b The bear went over the mountain and came back again

c The bear went over the mountain and cross the lake

d The bear went over the mountain and the pass

A final criterion for “constituency” is whether the sequence in question can be the antecedent for a pro-word (i.e., a pronoun or a word with a similar function), it seems to be generally true that pro-forms can only use constituents for their antecedents, never non-constituents The technical term for the relation between a pro-word (or more generally, pro-expression) and its antecedent is

anaphora All the constituents in The bear went over the mountain can be justified under the

anaphora test:

a The bear went over the mountain He was hungry

b The bear went over the mountain He did so in order to see what was on the other side

c The bear went over the mountain He went there because he had a strong drive to conquer

E.g The cat can climb the tree

Can the cat climb the tree?

The transformational analysis is claiming that there are 2 levels of syntactic structure

The first, called Deep structure is formed by the PS rules in accordance with the head’s subcategorization properties Deep structure plays a special role in the interpretation of sentences Deep structure or base component produces / generates basic syntactic structures

The second, called Surface structure, results from applying whatever transformation are appropriate for the sentence in questions Surface structure/ transformational component changes/ transform basic structures into sentences

We can illustrate the above mentioned concept with the diagram:

Phrase structure rules

Deep structure  (Subcategorization restricts choice of complement)

Transformations

Surface structure

For example, the sentence: What did the boy see? Has two syntactic structures;

(Deep structure)

(Surface structure)

It should be noticed that only constituents can be questioned and moved

E.g, (a) Did he climb {up the ladder}?

PP (b) Where did he climb { }?

(c) Did he {fold up} {the ladder}?

NP

In (c) “up the ladder” is not a constituent and thus cannot be questioned or moved?

(d) Where did he {fold} { }?

did What

I Subject, Predicator, Object, Complement and Adjunct

Subject and Predicate

Consider the pair of sentences below

(1) The cat devoured the rat

(2) The rat devoured the cat

The structure of these sentences can be represented as in (3) and (4) below using brackets:

(3) [The cat] [devoured [the rat]]

(4) [The rat] [devoured [the cat]]

As we have already seen, these sentences contain exactly the same words, but differ quite radically

in meaning This meaning difference comes about as a result of the different roles played by the

various constituents In (3) and (4)distinct entities, namely the cat and the rat respectively, carry out the action denoted by the word devoured We will call words that denote actions verbs

Also, notice that we could say that (3) is concerned with telling us more about the cat, while (4) is

concerned with telling us more about the rat We can now define the Subject of a sentence as the

constituent that on the one hand tells us who performs the action denoted by the verb (i.e who is the Agent), and on the other hand tells us who or what the sentence is about So to find out what is

the Subject of a particular sentence we can ask ‘Who or what carried out the action denoted by the verb?’ and also ‘Who or what is this sentence about?’ The answers to these questions will pinpoint

the Subject

The second bracketed units in the sentences in (3) and (4) are devoured the rat and devoured the cat, respectively These constituents tell us more about the Subject of the sentence, namely what it was engaged in doing (or, to be more precise, what its referent was engaged in doing) In (3) the Subject (the cat) was engaged in eating a rat, whereas in (4) the Subject (the rat) was engaged in

eating a cat We will use the term Predicate for the unit in a sentence whose function is to specify

what the Subject is engaged in doing

The notion Predicate is therefore a second type of grammatical function In any given sentence the Predicate is everything in the sentence except the Subject

Predicator

So far we have looked at the way in which the bracketed strings in (5) and (6) function:

(5) [The cat] [devoured the rat] = (1)

Subject Predicate

(6) [The rat] [devoured the cat] = (2)

Subject Predicate

We should now take a closer look at the elements inside the Predicate Can we assign further functions to them? Yes, we can In each of the Predicates above there is a verb, devoured, and a Noun Phrase, namely the rat and the cat, respectively Here we will concentrate on the function of the verb We will say that devoured in (5) and (6) functions as Predicator Predicators are pivotal elements which specify what we could call the bare-bone content of the sentences in which they occur, that is, the main action or process denoted by the verb As their name suggests, Predicates are in the business of predicating

something, i.e saying something of something else Thus, the bare-bone content of (5) and (6) is

‘devouring’ This devouring activity is predicated of the Subjects of these sentences, which specify who was engaged in the activity of devouring

Be careful to distinguish Predicates from Predicators

We can now refine (5) and (6) as follows:

Direct Object

After our discussion of Subjects, Predicates and Predicators we now turn to a fourth type of

grammatical function: the Direct Object(DO) Consider the following sentences:

(7) His girlfriend bought this computer

(8) That silly fool broke the teapot

(9) Our linguistics lecturer took this photograph

(10) My sister found this book

The Subjects of these sentences are the first NPs in each case: his girlfriend, that silly fool, our

linguistics lecturer and my sister The Predicates are bought this computer, broke the teapot, took this photograph and found this book

The Predicators are bought, broke, took and found

We now assign the function of Direct Object to the NPs this computer, the teapot, this photograph and this book

How can we characterize the notion Direct Object? In semantic terms Direct Objects are said to be constituents that refer to entities that undergo the activity or process denoted by the verb In (7) the referent of the NP this computer undergoes a buying activity, in (8) the referent of the NP the tea-pot undergoes a breaking process, in (9) the referent of this photograph undergoes a picture-taking process, and, finally, in (10) the referent of this book undergoes a process of being found

Indirect Object

In this section we will be looking at a further type of verbal Complement: Indirect Objects (IOs) In the sentences below the IOs have been italicized:

(11) We gave the boys the CDs

(12) The publisher sent her a review copy of the book

(13) She lent the student a diskette

(14) My father always told us stories

When we discussed Subjects and Direct Objects in the previous sections we saw that Subjects typically have the role of Agent, and that Direct Objects typically have the role of

(5’)

(6’)

Patient/Undergoer In (11)–(14), the typical role associated with the italicised Indirect Objects is Goal/Receiver or Beneficiary

Notice that (11)–(14) also contain Direct Objects, namely the phrases the CDs, a review copy of the

book, a diskette and stories Verbs that take a Direct Object and an Indirect Object are called

ditransitive verbs

Apart from their semantic properties, Indirect Objects have a number of syntactic characteristics

Firstly, they are usually Noun Phrases

Secondly, they cannot occur without a following Direct Object Compare the sentences in (15)–(18)

with those in (11)–(14): if we leave out the Direct Objects, the sentences become ungrammatical (15) *We gave the boys

(16) *The publisher sent her

(17) *She lent the student

(18) *My father always told us

Of course, (15)–(18) are possible, but only if we interpret the NPs following the verbs as Direct Objects

Thirdly, Indirect Objects always precede Direct Objects We cannot have the sentences in (19)–

(22) where the order of IOs and DOs has been reversed:

(19) *We gave the CDs the boys

(20) *The publisher sent a review copy of the book her

(21) *She lent a diskette the student

(22) *My father always told stories us

Notice that we can ‘repair’ the sentences in (19)–(22) by adding the word to:

(23) We gave the CDs to the boys

(24) The publisher sent a review copy of the book to her

(25) She lent a diskette to the student

(26) My father told stories to us

A final syntactic characteristic of Indirect Objects is that, like DOs, they can become the Subjects

of passive sentences Compare (27)–(30) with

(11)–(14):

(27) The boys were given the CDs by us

(28) She was sent a review copy of the book by the publisher

(29) The student was lent a diskette by her

(30) We were always told stories by our father

Adjunct

We turn now to a final grammatical function Consider the following sentences:

(31) The bus stopped suddenly

(32) Shakespeare wrote his plays a long time ago

(33) They went to the theatre in London

(34) He hates maths because he can’t understand it

The italicised strings of words in these sentences have the function of telling us about then how,

when, where or why of the situations expressed by the respective sentences Constituents that have

this function we will call Adjuncts We can test to see if a particular sentence contains an Adjunct

by asking how?, when?, where? or why? For example, if we want to know what is the Adjunct in (31) we ask ‘how did the bus stop?’ The answer is ‘suddenly’, and this phrase therefore functions

as an Adjunct Similarly, in (32) we can ask ‘When did Shakespeare write his plays?’ The answer

is ‘a long time ago’ Adjuncts are always optional and express peripheral information Another characteristic of Adjuncts is that they can be ‘stacked’, which means that more than one of them can appear in a sentence:

(35) Last year I saw this film several times

Finally, Adjuncts are mobile, as the following examples show:

(36) Greedily Andre´ ate all the biscuits

(37) Andre´ greedily ate all the biscuits

(38) Andre´ ate all the biscuits greedily

Notice, though, that the position between the main verb and Direct Object isexcluded:

(39) *Andre´ ate greedily all the biscuits

II Criteria for the Classification of Clause Elements

The criteria adopted for the classification of clause functions are four: determination by the verb,

position, ability to become the subject and realisations of these functions

1 Determination by the verb

The number and type of objects and complements that can occur in a clause are determined by the

verb according to its potential We say that a certain verb predicts an object or a complement Eat, for example, predicts an object that expresses the thing eaten One sense of carry predicts an object that refers to the thing carried (They carried backpacks) Disappear, however, does not predict or

admit an object (*He disapppeared the money) Determination is related to verb class

Transitive verbs usually require one or more objects They occur in type SPO (carry), type

S-P-Oi-Od (send), and type S-P-O-C (find) in one of its uses

In transitive verbs such as disappear occur in type S-P They do not admit an object, but certain

intransitive verbs predict a complement of space or time, as will be explained shortly

More exactly, we should talk about transitive or intransitive uses of certain verbs,

as a great many verbs can be used in English both transitively and intransitively Land is transitive

in The pilot landed the plane safely, but intransitive in The plane landed Carry is transitive in They

carried backpacks, but it has an intransitive use in His voice carries well (= ‘projects’)

Alocative element is required by a few transitive verbs such as put and place (Put the

handkerchiefs in the drawer; Place the dish in the microwave) Without this locative element, the

clause is syntactically and semantically incomplete (*Put the dish) It therefore has the status of a central clause element A locative element is also predicted by many intransitive verbs of motion

such as come, go, fly, drive, which can predict such meanings as Direction (flying south) and

Goal, which marks an end-point (go to Rome)

Both types will be represented here as Locative/Goal Complements subsumed under the abbreviation (Cloc) However, it is also possible to use these verbs without a locative, as in for

example Are you coming? Don’t go! I’ll drive (Drive in fact predicts an object or a locative or both, as in I’ll drive you to the station.)

Copular verbs, a type of intransitive, require a Subject Complement Only verbs capable of being

used as copulas can be used in this way So, for instance, be and feel as in I am cold, I feel cold can

be used as copulas in English but touch can not (*I touch cold)

Besides predicting an attribute, verbs of being such as be, remain, stay predict being in a location

Their Complements are then analysed as locative (Cloc)

The following examples illustrate the parallel between attributes as Subject and Object

Complements and the Locative/Goal types Evidently there are many other verbs which function in only one of these patterns:

A bicycle will get you fit A bicycle will get you to work

By contrast, adjuncts are not determined by any particular type of verb Suddenly, for instance, can

be used with intransitive verbs like disappear and transitive verbs like carry

Moreover, adjuncts differ from subjects and objects in that there is no limit to the number of

adjuncts that can be included in a clause

Position

Objects occur immediately after the verb, with the indirect object before the direct object when

both are present (The bomb killed a policeman(Od); He sent me(Oi) an email (Od)) Complements also occur after the verb or after an object Adjuncts occupy different positions according to type,

and are often moveable within the clause

Ability to become the subject

Objects can normally become the subject in a passive clause, since the system of voice allows

different semantic roles to be associated with Subject and Object functions (The bomb killed the

policeman/The policeman was killed by the bomb; I sent her an email/She was sent an email)

However, passivisation with ‘promotion’ to subject is not a watertight criterion for the identification of object functions It can be too exclusive and too inclusive Passivisation excludes

from object status NGs following verbs such as fit, which other-wise fulfil the criteria for objects

Conversely, passivisation can promote to subject NGs that are certainly not objects Such is the

case in the well-known example This bed was slept in by Queen Victoria, derived from the active

Queen Victoria slept in this bed, in which this bed is part of a prepositional phrase (PP) functioning

as a locative Complement, not as an object A prepositional phrase has within it a nominal group, however, which increasingly in present-day English is able to become subject in a corresponding passive clause

Examples of this kind, such as The flowerbeds have been trampled on occur when the subject

referent is visibly affected by the action, as is the case here, or acquires some importance, as in the

case of the bed slept in by Queen Victoria.?

III Basic Syntactic Structures of the Slause

Clausal elements or functions enter into varied relationships with each other to express different types of proposition concerning different states of affairs These are exemplified as follows,

S-P-Od-Cloc I| put|the dish |in the microwave

He came in, sat down and took out a cigarette

A clear and easy criterion is the question tag The Subject is that element which is picked up in a question tag and referred to anaphorically by a pronoun:

Your brother is a ski instructor, isn’t he?

Susie won’t mind waiting a moment, will she?

The Subject is placed before the finite verbin declarative clauses, and in wh-interrogative clauses where the wh-element is Subject

Unfortunately, everyone left early

Who came in late last night?

It is placed after the finite operator in yes/no interrogative clauses, and in wh-interrogative clauses

in which the wh-element is not

Are you pleased with the result?

Did everyone leave early?

Subjects determine the concord of number (singular or plural) and person with the verb

Concord is manifested only in those verb forms that show inflectional contrast:

The librarian/he/she/has checked the book

The librarians/I/you/we/they have checked the book

When the Subject is realised by a collective noun, concord depends on how the referent is visualised by the speaker:

The committee is sitting late (seen as a whole)

The committee have decided to award extra grants (seen as a number of members)

Subjects determine number, person and gender concord with the Subject Complement, and of reflexive pronouns at Cs, Oi and Od:

Jean and Bill are my friends

She cut herself (Od) on a piece of broken glass

Why don’t you give yourself (Oi) a treat?

Realisations of the Subject

Subjects can be realised by various classes of groups and clauses:

Nominal Groups – That man is crazy

Nominal groups are the most prototypical realisation of subject, as they refer basically to persons and things They can range from simple heads to the full complexity of NG structures

Cocaine can damage the heart as well as the brain

The precise number of heart attacks from using cocaine is not known

Dummy it –It’s hot

This is a non-referential or semantically empty use of the pronoun it, which occurs in expressions

of time, weather and distance, such as:

It’s nearly three o’clock

It’s raining

It is six hundred kilometres from Madrid to Barcelona

Syntactically, English requires the presence of a subject even in such situations, in order to distinguish between declaratives and interrogatives:

Is it raining? How far is it from here to Barcelona?

There is no plural concord with a NG complement

C Unstressed there –There’s plenty of time

Unstressed there fulfils several of the syntactic criteria for subject: position, inversion with auxiliaries and repetition in tag phrases; but unlike normal subjects it cannot be replaced by a pronoun Concord, when made, is with the following NG:

There was only one fine day last week, wasn’t there?

There were only two fine days last week, weren’t there?

Concord with the following NG is made in writing, but not always in informal spoken English with the present tense of be, and is never made when the NG is a series of proper names:

How many are coming? Well, there’s Andrew and Silvia, and Jo and Pete

Prepositional phrase and Adverbial group as subject – Now is the time

These function only marginally as subject and usually specify meanings of time or place, but instrumental meanings and idiomatic manner uses can also occur

Will up in the front suit you? (PP of place)

Before midday would be convenient (PP of time)

By plane costs more than by train (PP of means)

That-clauses

That-clauses at subject are used only in formal styles in English In everyday use they are more acceptable if they are preceded by the fact The that-clause thus becomes complement of a NG functioning as subject:

The fact that he failed his driving test surprised everybody (NG)

II THE PREDICATOR (P)

We use the term Predicator for the clause element present in all major types of clause, including the imperative clause (in which the subject is not usually present in English)

The predicator is the clause function that largely determines the remaining structure of the clause,

by virtue of being intransitive, transitive or copular

The predicator may constitute the whole of the predicate, as in The plane landed, or part of it, as in

The plane landed on the runway

The predicator is identified by position in relation to the subject

The predicator function is realised by both finite (e.g waits) and non-finite (waiting) lexical and primary verbs

Functionally, finiteness is often carried by an auxiliary verb – such as is, was – to specify tense

(past/present) and voice (be+ -en), and is then followed by the predicator (is making, was made)

Semantically, the predicator encodes the following main types of ‘process’:

• material processes of ‘doing’ with verbs such as make, catch, go;

• mental processes of ‘experiencing’, with cognitive verbs of perception (e.g see),

cognition (know), affectivity (like) and desideration (hope); and

• relational processes of ‘being’ with verbs such as be and belong

CHAPTER 4

DIRECT, INDIRECT AND PREPOSITIONAL OBJECTS

I THE DIRECT OBJECT

Syntactic and semantic features

It occurs only in transitive clauses with transitive verbs such as hit, buy, send

• It is placed immediately after the predicator, but follows an indirect object, if there is one –

I have sent the invitations (Od)

I have sent everyone(Oi) an invitation (Od)

• It is typically realised by a NG, as in I saw the burglar(NG), but may also be realised

by embedded clauses, as in I saw what he did(cl.)

• It can generally be ‘promoted’ to become subject in a corresponding passive

clause –

The invitations(S) have been sent

(corresponding to the Od in I have sent the invitations)

• Direct objects can be tested for, by questions beginning with Who(m)? What? Which?

How much/many? and by wh-clefts

What did you send?

What I sent were the invitations (wh-cleft)

• Semantically, a prototypical direct object occurs in a high-transitivity situation – that is, in a process of ‘doing’ in which the referent’s state or location is affected in some way, as in the first example below

However the Od is associated with a wide variety of semantic roles in which ‘affected-ness’ is not

a feature, and with many types of verbs, some of which are illustrated in the following examples:

He headed the ball into the net (Affected) The burglars used an acetylene lamp to break open the safe (Instrument)

I felt a sudden pain in my arm (Phenomenon: i.e that which is experienced)

He gave the door a push (Range: i.e the nominalised extension of the verb)

He swam the Channel (Affected locative)

Realisations of the Direct Object

The Direct Object can be realised by groups and by clauses There are five main possibilities:

II THE INDIRECT OBJECT

Syntactic and semantic features

The indirect object occurs only with verbs which can take two objects such as give, send

Its position in clause structure is between the verb and the direct object: I sent them a fax

It is typically realised by a NG, but occasionally by a wh-nominal clause As a pronoun, it is in the objective case

The indirect object is associated with two semantic roles, Recipient (the one who receives the goods or information), and the Beneficiary or ‘intended recipient’ The differences between the two are reflected in the syntax

In passive counterparts the Recipient Oi corresponds to the subject By contrast, most Beneficiary Objects do not easily become subject in a passive clause, although this restriction is not absolute, at least for some speakers:

Both Recipient and Beneficary Oi have an optional prepositional paraphrase, which functions as a

Prepositional Object For the Recipient, the preposition is to, for the Beneficiary it is for

Realisations of the Indirect Object

Both Recipient and Beneficiary Indirect Objects are typically realised by NGs, and less typically

by wh-nominal relative clauses, which occur more usually as a prepositional alternative:

The clerk handed himthe envelope (Recip./NG)

You can lend the dictionary to whoever needs it (Recip./nom relative cl.)

Phil has booked all his friends ticketsfor the show (Ben/NG)

More marginally, a Recipient Oi can be realised by a non-finite -ing clause or a PP, but these options are not open to a Beneficiary Oi, which always refers to an entity:

I’m giving reading magazines less importance lately (-ing cl)

Let’s give before lunch-time priority (PP)

III PREPOSITIONAL VERBS AND THE PREPOSITIONAL OBJECT (Op)

A subsidiary type of Object is that which is mediated by a preposition We will call this the Prepositional Object (Op) – Oblique Object is another term – as in:

Jo looked after my cat

You can rely on Jane in an emergency

The other kids all laughed at Amy when she got her face dirty

These examples all have in common the following characteristics:

• The NG following the preposition encodes a participant in the clause structure

• The preposition is associated with a particular verb, often called a prepositional verb Idiomatic prepositional verbs have separate lexical entries in dictionaries

• Without the preposition, the clause would either be ungrammatical (*look my cat,

*count Jane, *laughed Amy) or, in some cases, have a different meaning altogether,

as in see to the baggage(attend to it) as opposed to see the baggage

IV PHRASAL VERBS

Phrasal verbs are combinations of a lexical verb and an adverbial particle (p) (get up, switch on/off, take back, sit down) They may be intransitive, with no object, as in 1or transitive (with a direct object) as in 2 and 3:

1 What time do you usually get upin the morning?

2a She switched off the light 2b She switched the light off

3 She switched it off

With a noun as Object, the particle in most cases may either precede or follow the object as in 2 But if the Object is a pronoun, the particle is placed after it, as in 3

The motivation for this choice has to do with the distribution of information

We focus on the new information by placing it last So in 2a the new information is the light; while

in 2b and 3 it is the switching off Pronouns do not usually represent new information and are placed before the particle

This choice of emphasing either the noun or the particle is not possible with a ynonymous word verb Compare:

one-They cancelled the wedding (focus on wedding)

They called off the wedding (focus on wedding)

They called the wedding off (focus on off)

Some verb + particle combinations can be used both transitively and intransitively, e.g.blow up (= explode), break down (= reduce to pieces) In some cases the transitive and intransitive clauses form an ergative pair with a causative meaning in the transitive:

Terrorists have blown up the power station (transitive)

The power station has blown up (intransitive)

while in others the meaning is related by metaphorical extension:

Theybroke downthe door to rescue the child (transitive)

Her health broke downunder the strain (intransitive)

The car has broken down (= stop working) (intransitive)

CHAPTER 5

PHRASE STRUCTURES: NP, VP, ADJP, ADVP, PP

D-STRUCTURE AND SURFACE STRUCTURES

I NOUN PHRASE (NP)

II VERB PHRASE

III ADJECTIVE PHRASE

Complements of adjectives are of three types: prepositional phrase, noun clause, and infinitive verbal phrase (non-finite clause) In other words, an adjective phrase doesn’t always end with the head adjective; it may contain further grammatical structure As you become acquainted with adjectives, you will realize that only some adjectives take complements - particularly those that semantically refer to mental or emotional states, e.g., aware, afraid, sorry, disappointed, astonished, hopeful, sad

IV ADVERB PHRASE

V PREPOSITIONAL PHRASE

A prepositional phrase (PP) consists of a preposition followed by a noun phrase

Prepositional phrases are easy to spot The first part of a PP is the preposition and the second part of it is its object, a noun phrase This terminology also suggests the central role of the

preposition within its phrase

VI DEEP STRUCTURE AND SURFACE STRUCTURE

Deep structure is formed by the PS rules in accordance with the head’s subcategorization properties Deep structure plays a special role in the interpretation of sentences Deep structure or base component produces / generates basic syntactic structures

Surface structure, results from applying whatever transformation are appropriate for the sentence in questions Surface structure/ transformational component changes/ transform basic structures into sentences

We can illustrate the above mentioned concept with the diagram:

Phrase structure rules

Deep structure  (Subcategorization restricts choice of complement)