ENGL 215 Introduction to Linguistics

Week 7

Chapter 7: Grammar
Chapter 8: Syntax
 Introduction

• We have already considered two levels of description

used in the study of language

• What are they?

ðəlʌkibɔjz

The luck -y boy -s

functional lexical derivational lexical inflectional

 Chapter 7: Grammar

• the lucky boys

• * boys the lucky

• * lucky boys the

asterisk * = unacceptable or ungrammatical

• English has strict rules for combining words into phrases.

• article + adjective + noun ‘

• noun + article + adjective 

 Grammar

So, what is GRAMMAR?

One way of defining grammar
• The process of describing the structure of phrases

and sentences in such a way that we account for all

the grammatical sequences in a language and rule
out all the ungrammatical sequences.
 The Parts of Speech

• The lucky boys found a backpack in the park and they opened it carefully.

The lucky boys found a backpack

article adjective noun verb article noun

in the park

preposition article noun

and they opened it carefully

conjunction pronoun verb pronoun adverb

For more information, read pp. 82 & 83.

 The Parts of Speech

• Noun N • boy, backpack, dog, school, roughness,

earthquake, love.
• Articles Art • a, an, the

• Adjective Adj • happy, large, strange

• Verb V • go, talk, be, have

• Adverb Adv • slowly, yesterday, really, very

• Preposition Prep • at, in, on, near, with, without

• Pronoun Pro • she, herself, they, it, you

• Conjunction Conj • and, because, when

 Chapter 8: Syntax

• When we concentrate on the structure & ordering of

components within a sentence = studying the syntax of a

language
• Syntax (originally Greek) = ‘putting together’/ ‘arrangement’

Syntax is the study of the rules governing the way words are

combined to form phrases and sentences in a language.

 Syntactic Rules

• When we set out to provide an analysis of the syntax of a

language, we try to adhere to the “all and only” criterion.

• This means that our analysis must account for:

• all the grammatically correct phrases and sentences and

• only those grammatically correct phrases and sentences in
whatever language we are analyzing.
• In other words, if we write rules for the creation of well-formed

structures, we have to check that those rules won’t also lead

to ill-formed structures.
 Syntactic Rules

• The grammar will generate all the well-formed structures of the language

•The grammar will not generate any ill-formed structures

For example,
We might say informally that, in English,
• a preposition (e.g. near) + a noun (e.g. London) = a prepositional phrase (near
London).
• If we follow this rule, we will produce phrases like *near tree or *with dog.
• We clearly need to be more careful in forming this rule.
• a preposition + a noun phrase (not just a noun) = a prepositional phrase.
• NP {Art (Adj) N, Pro, PN}
• So that the revised rule can produce these well-formed structures: near London, with
you, near a tree, with the dog
 A Generative Grammar

• When we have an effective rule such as “a prepositional phrase in

English consists of a preposition followed by a noun phrase,” we
can imagine an extremely large number of English phrases that
could be produced using this rule.
• In fact, the potential number is unlimited.
• This reflects another goal of syntactic analysis, which is:

• to have a small and finite set of rules that will be capable of

producing a large and infinite number of well-formed structures.
• This small and finite set of rules is sometimes described as

generative grammar because it can be used to “generate” or

produce sentence structures and not just describe them.
 Deep and surface structure

This type of grammar should also be capable of revealing the

basis of two other phenomena:
1. how some superficially different sentences are closely
related

2. how some superficially similar sentences are in fact

different.

How?
 Deep and surface structure
1. some superficially different sentences are closely related

• Charlie broke the window.

• The window was broken by Charlie.
• Charlie was the one who broke the window.
• It was Charlie who broke the window.
• Was the window broken by Charlie?

• Different in their surface structure = different arrangement or ordering

• BUT they have the same ‘deep’ or underlying structure = same basic

components (NP + V + NP)

• The deep structure is an abstract level of structural organization in which all the

elements determining structural interpretation are represented. What are they?

• In short, the grammar must be capable of showing how a single underlying

abstract representation can become different surface structures.

 Structural ambiguity

Think of the deep structure of this sentence:

Annie bumped into a

man with an umbrella.
 Structural ambiguity

• Annie whacked a man with an umbrella.

• Same surface structure

• BUT different deep structure
• What are the two possible meanings/ the two distinct deep structures/ two distinct underlying
interpretations here?

• The boy saw the man with the telescope.

• Small boys and girls

• Our syntactic analysis should be capable of showing the structural

distinction between these underlying representations.

Structural ambiguity: a situation in which a single phrase or sentence has two
(or more) different underlying structures and interpretations.
Symbols used in syntactic analysis

r
 Symbols used in syntactic description

3. curly brackets { } (= only one of the elements

enclosed within the curly brackets must be selected.)
For example:
• NP Art (e.g. the dog)
N
(e.g. it)
• NP
Pro (e.g. Abeer)

• NP
PN
 Structural ambiguity

The boy saw the man with the telescope.

Meaning 1: Using the telescope, the boy saw the man

Meaning 2: The boy saw the man. The man had a telescope.

New rule: NP Art (Adj) N (PP)

 Structural ambiguity

The boy saw the man with the telescope.

S

NP
Art VPN V NP PP

Art N Prep NP

Art
The boy saw the man with Nthe
telescope

Meaning: Using the telescope, the boy saw the man

 Structural ambiguity
The boy saw the man with the telescope.
S

NP

Art VPN V NP
PP
Art N
Prep NP

Art N
The boy saw the man with the
telescop
Meaning: The boy saw the man. The man had a telescope.
e
 Exercises

The old tree swayed in the wind.

S

NP VP

Art Adj N V PP

Prep NP

Art N

The old tree swayed in the wind

 Exercises

The children put the toy in the box.

S

NP VP
Art N V NP PP

Art N Prep NP

Art N

The children put the toy in the box

 Exercises

• Try this:

• Sarah went to the hospital.

• He saw John with an amazing car yesterday.
• I met her yesterday.
 Phrase structure rules

• This approach would enable us to generate a very large

number of sentences with a very small number of rules.
• These rules are called phrase structure rules.
• Phrase structure rules state that the structure of a phrase of a
specific type will consist of one or more constituents in a particular
• order.
We can use phrase structure rules to present the information of the
tree diagram in another format.

Tree diagram Phrase structure rule

 Phrase structure rules

• The first rule in the following set of simple phrase structure rules
states that “a sentence rewrites as a noun phrase and a verb
phrase.”
•
The second rule states that “a noun phrase rewrites as either an
article plus an optional adjective plus a noun, or a pronoun, or a
proper noun”

r
 Lexical rules

• Phrase structure rules generate structures.

• In order to turn this structure into recognizable English, we

also need lexical rules.

PN {Mary, George} V {followed, helped, saw}

N {girl, dog, boy} Adj {small, crazy}

Art {a, an, the} Prep {near, with}

Pro {it, you} Adv {recently, yesterday, slowly}

 Lexical rules

• We can rely on these rules to generate the grammatical

sentences 1-6, but not the ungrammatical sentences 7-

12.
 Tree diagrams

One of the most common ways to create a visual representation

of syntactic structure is through tree diagrams.
 Tree diagrams

• The girl saw a dog

Tree Diagrams
 Exercises

• Draw a tree diagram to represent the different syntactic

components of the following sentences.

• The guy met the researcher.

• The smart guy met the researcher.
• The smart guy met the famous researcher.
References

Alroqi, H. (2014). Introduction to linguistics. Chapter 7: Grammar

Alroqi, H. (2014). Introduction to linguistics. Chapter 8: Syntax

Yule, G. (2017). The study of language. (6th ed.) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.