An Introduction to SYNTAX

SYNTAX

Syntax is the branch of linguistics that deals with the grammatical arrangement of words and morphemes in the sentences of a language or of languages in general.

Syntax concerns the possible arrangements of words in a language. The basic unit is the sentence which minimally consists of a main clause (containing at least a subject and predicate). Nouns and verbs are the major categories and combine with various others, such as adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, etc. to form more complex sentences.

WHAT IS A SENTENCE?

A sentence (which must have both a subject and a verb) is a unit of meaning that expresses a "complete thought".

Sentences are essential for clear and unambiguous communication.  This is why experts advise the use "compete sentences", even when writing outlines or creating teaching materials.

Sentence complexity reflects cognitive complexity so it may help to analyze a student's writing by counting the average number of phrases and clauses they use in their sentences. Simple sentences, without a lot of grammatical complexity, may be best for some purposes, such as providing step-by-step directions. For other purposes, such as developing an argument or a compare-and-contrast essay, sentences with more complex structure may be most appropriate.

WHAT IS A PHRASE?

A PHRASE is a syntactic structure that contains one or more words but does not contain both a subject and a verb (so it is not a sentence). A phrase has one central element, referred to as the head of the phrase.

Heads of phrases can be:

1)    Noun Phrases  

Noun phrases always contain a noun or a pronoun as the head. Noun phrases may be single nouns or pronouns or they may begin with a determiner. Determiners include:  

·         Articles (e.g., a, an, the)

·         Possessives (e.g., my, his, man's, Sam's)

·         Demonstratives (e.g., that, this, those)

·         Quantifiers (e.g., every, another, some)

·         Wh-words (e.g., what, whatever, which)

 Noun phrases can serve different grammatical functions in a sentence:

·         Subject (e.g., The boy was very small.)

·         Object (e.g., The girl read some books.)

·         Complement (e.g., This is what I like.)

·         Adverbial (e.g., We went yesterday.)

2)  Verb Phrases

Verb phrases serve as the main structure of the predicate and include a main verb and any auxiliary verb forms and modifiers that might be attached to it.

For example “I should have told you about the problem.”

(The verb forms infinitives, participles and gerunds can also serve as phrases.)

3)  Adjective Phrases

Adjective phrases have adjectives as the head of the phrase, although there may be one or more modifiers attached to it.

For example “He has really unsafe habits” 

4)  Adverb Phrases

An adverb phrase is simply two or more words that act as an adverb. It can modify a verb, adverb, or adjective and can tell “how”, “where”, “why”, or “when.”

An adverb clause which also modifies verbs, adverbs and adjectives; but, an adverb clause also includes a subject and a verb.

For example “Meet me at the mall.”

5)  Prepositional Phrases

Prepositional phrases begin with a preposition and the preposition is considered the head of the phrase.

For example “She did really well on the final”

Some argue that the object of the proposition, the noun to which the preposition refers, should be considered the head of the phrase, but we will consider the preposition the head].

WHAT IS A CLAUSE? 

A CLAUSE is a syntactic structure that contains both a subject and a predicate. There are two types of clauses:

• independent (main)
• dependent (subordinate)

1)    Independent (main) clauses may stand alone (and when they do stand alone they are the same as a simple sentence) or they may be joined to other clauses by:

a)   a coordinating conjunction (e.g., and, or, nor, for, but, yet, so)

b)   a conjunctive adverb (e.g., however, therefore, after, because, if)

for example ” The beach is a lot of fun, but the mountains are even better.”

2)  Dependent (subordinate) clauses can not stand alone (i.e., must be attached to an independent clause) either because they begin with a subordinating conjunction (e.g., if, unless, because) or a relative pronoun (e.g., that, whose, what).

a)   While dependent clauses add meaning to the main clause to which they are attached, they can be deleted without changing the meaning of the main clause.

b)   Some types of dependent clauses include:

i)   Noun (or nominal) clauses for ex: This is what he wants.

ii)  Adjective (relative) clauses for ex: This is the exercise that we need to do

iii)  Adverbial clauses for ex: Do this exercise before the week is over.

iv)  Comparative clauses for ex: This exercise is harder than the one I did last week.