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English Syntax – Lecture 1

English Syntax – Lecture 1. David Brett University of Sassari 2007. Can you put this scrambled clause in order?. girl beach Australian an sat the on sandy. An Australian girl sat on the sandy beach. How did you complete this simple task?.

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English Syntax – Lecture 1

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  1. English Syntax – Lecture 1 David Brett University of Sassari 2007

  2. Can you put this scrambled clause in order? girl beach Australian an sat the on sandy

  3. An Australian girl sat on the sandy beach

  4. How did you complete this simple task? • By organising words into phrases and then organising phrases into a clause.

  5. Phrase = Head + modifiers Noun Phrase Noun (Head) Det (Modifier) A girl

  6. Phrases can contain other phrases NP Det N’ AP Adj N An Australian girl

  7. What is wrong with this solution? • *An sandy girl sat on the Australian beach • Formal anomaly: An + word starting with a consonant • Girl (Noun class> animate) excludes certain modifiers e.g. sandy, rocky, cloudy, explosive etc. normally associated with non-animate nouns

  8. How about this? • * The sandy beachsat on an Australian girl • Verb SIT implies animate subject

  9. Similarly – are all these phases acceptable?

  10. Beautiful, picturesque and lovely can modify both human and non-human nouns, whereas good-looking would normally be reserved for humans • N.B. The heads of phrases have control over their modifiers.

  11. Another example with a preposition phrase

  12. In this example into, the head of the PP determines what its modifiers could be • These relations between heads and modifiers are called dependencies

  13. An important type of dependency is that of the collocation • Collocation: regular fixed combination of words • Collocations can be explored using a Concordancer (special type of software for analysing large bodies of texts called Corpora hence Corpus Linguistics)

  14. Adjective + work #1

  15. Adjective + work #2

  16. Tests for phrases • Transposition • Substitution • Ellipsis

  17. Transposition • Many sequences of words can be moved together into different slots in a clause • E.g. • An Australian girl vandalised the statue. (Active) • The statue was vandalised by an Australian girl. (Passive)

  18. Substitution • A single word can substitute the words forming a phrase • An Australian girl vandalised the statue in Rome. • E.g. • She vandalised the statue in Rome. • An Australian girl vandalised it in Rome. • An Australian girl vandalised the statue there.

  19. Ellipsis • An Australian girl vandalised the statue. An Australian girl attacked a police officer. • =>An Australian girl vandalised the statue and [An Australian girl] attacked a police officer.

  20. Constituent structure • Words are organised into phrases • Phrases are organised into clauses • Clauses are organised into sentences • The notion of this hierarchical organisation is called constituent structure.

  21. Clauses • Clauses are groups of phrases • Just like phrases, clauses are composed of a head and optional modifiers • The head of a clause is always a verb • This may be counter-intuitive, we may prefer to consider the subject more important, however consider: • It’s raining again.

  22. Complements and adjuncts • Which of the following clauses would you consider to be complete?

  23. Similarly, could any of the phrases in the clauses below be omitted? • She paid for the meal by credit card. • On Friday, it was far too cold. • I sent a fax to that nice woman in the insurance office. • Last year we bought my mother a present for her birthday

  24. She paid for the meal [by credit card]. • [On Friday,] it was far too cold. • I sent a fax [to that nice woman in the insurance office]. • [Last year] we bought my mother a present [for her birthday]

  25. Complements and adjuncts • Complements are modifiers that must be present • The presence of Adjuncts is not mandatory • E.g. • The other day he gave me a newspaperfrom Malta. • me and a newspaper are both complements • The other day and from Malta are both adjuncts

  26. Constructions • Copula constructions link subject and other phrase • These can be of three types:

  27. Other qualities of constructions • INTERROGATIVE V. DECLARATIVE • INTERROGATIVE: • YES/NO • WH- • ACTIVE V. PASSIVE • DIRECT OBJECT v. OBLIQUE OBJECT v. DOUBLE OBJECT

  28. Example 1 • The dog eats brown biscuits • [NON-COPULA, DECLARATIVE, DIRECT OBJECT, ACTIVE]

  29. Example 2 • Where are the brown biscuits? • [COPULA, INTERROGATIVE, WH, LOCATIVE]

  30. Example 3 • How many linguists was the light bulb changed by? • [NON-COPULA, INTERROGATIVE, WH, PASSIVE]

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