From words to text

1. From words to text

2. Syntax • 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. • The dog bit the man. • The man bit the dog.

3. Syntactic relations • Positional relation, or word order, refers to the sequential arrangement of words in a language. • The teacher saw the student. • The students saw the teacher. • Den Lehrer sehe ich dort. • The teacher see I there. • Ich sehe den Lehrer dort. • Dort sehe ich den Lehrer.

4. Positional relations are also the syntagmatic relations, or Horizontal relations, or chain relations. • Languages in the world can be classified by their specific word order, or the positional relations. • The are six possible types of languages. • SVO, VSO, SOV, OVS, OSV, VOS. • English is a SVO type.

5. Relation of substitutability (associative/ paradigmatic /vertical /choice relations) • The relation of substitutability refers to classes or sets of words substitutable for each other grammatically in sentences with the same structure. • The man/ girl / teacher smiles. • The relation of substitutability also refers to groups of more than one word which may be jointly substitutable grammatically for a single word of a particular set. • He went to Beijing yesterday / by plane / with his best friend.

6. Relation of co-occurrence • By co-occurrence one means that words of different sets of clauses may permit, or require, the occurrence of a word of another set or class to form a sentence or a particular part of a sentence. • The beautifulgirl came in. • The beststudentshave left.

7. Grammatical construction and its constituents • Grammatical construction can be used to mean any syntactic construct which is assigned one or more conventional functions in a language, together with whatever is linguistically conventionalized about its contribution to the meaning or use the construct contains. • On the syntactic level we distinguish the external and internal properties.

8. The external syntax of a construction refers to the properties of the construction as a whole. • Clause type, phrasal type. • The internal syntax of a construction is really a description of the construction’s “make-up”, with the terms such as “subject, predicate, object, determiner, noun”. • Mary (subject) ate (verb) an apple (clausal type). • This (determiner) book(noun): phrasal type

9. Immediate constituents • Constituent is a part of a larger linguistic unit, which is used to analyze the sentence structure to indicate the linguistic unit. • S • NP VP • Det N V NP • Det N • The boy ate the apple

10. Tree diagram. There are nodes in the diagram. Mother nodes and daughter nodes as well as sister nodes. • The analysis of a larger linguistic units into its immediate constituents is called as Immediate Constituents Analysis. • Another way to describe the analysis is bracketing. • ( (The) (boy) ) ( (ate) ( (the) (apple) ) ).

11. Endocentric constructions • The construction whose distribution is functionally equivalent to that of one or more of its constituents, I.e., a word or a group of words, which serves as a definable Center or Head, usu. Noun/verb/adjective phrase. • Those important letters • Will be coming • Very beautiful

12. Exocentric construction • A group of syntactically related words where none of the words is functionally equivalent to the group as a whole, that is, there is no definable “center” or “head” inside the group, usu. Basic sentence, prepositional phrase, predicate construction. • The door opened. • From the house • Close the door

13. coordination • A common syntactic pattern in English and other language formed by grouping together two or more categories of the same type with the help of conjunction such as “and”, “nut”, and “or”. • The boy and the girl • Go to the museum and visit the gallery • Down the stairs and through the field • Very important and quite urgent

14. subordination • The process or result of linking linguistic units so that they have different syntactic status, one being dependent on the other, and usually a constituent of the other. The subordinate constituents are words which modify the Head. • Two friends • My brother can drink wine. • Flying in the sky is the dream of men. • The coffee was hot beyond endurance.

15. There are three types of subordinate clauses • Complement clauses: He told me that he was interviewed by the reporter that day. • Adjunct clauses: Tom finished his homework before he went out for a rest. • Relative clauses: I never see that book that your brother gave you as a present.

16. Syntactic function • It show the relationship between a linguistic form and other parts of the linguistic pattern in which it is used. • Subject refers to one of the nouns in the nominative case. • Pater filium amat. • Patrem filius amat. • IN English, the subject of a sentence is often said to be “ the doer of the action”, while the object is “the person or thing acted upon by the doer”. 1. Mary slapped John. 2. A dog bit John. 3. John was bitten by a dog. 4. John underwent major heart surgery.

17. Therefore, “the doer of the action or the person or thing acted upon” identify particular semantic roles, namely, agent and patient. • Grammatical subject vs. logical subject. • John was bitten by a dog. • John: grammatical subject(what occupies the grammatical space before a noun), a dog: logical subject (what is the doer of the action). • The traditional definition of the subject: “what the sentence is about”: (what now is known as topic) 1. Bill is very smart. 2. Bill I don’t trust. 3. As for Bill, I don’t think he can do it. 4. 苹果我吃了。 5. 张三死了父亲。

18. Characteristic of subject • 1.Word order: Subject ordinarily precedes the verb in the statement. ---Sally collects stamps. • 2. Pro-form: the first and third person pronouns in English appears in a special form when the pronoun is a subject. ---He loves me. I love him • 3.Agreement with verb: In the simple present tense, an -s is added to the verb when a third person subject is singular. ---She angers him.

19. 4. Content questions: If the subject is replaced by a question word, the rest of the sentence remains unchanged. ---John stole the picture. ---Who stole the picture? ---What did John steal? • 5. Tag question ( a Tag Question is used to seek confirmation of a statement. ) The Tag Question always contains a pronoun which refers back to the subject, and never to any other element in the sentence. ---John loves Mary, doesn’t he? ---* John loves Mary, doesn’t she?

20. predicate • It refers to a major constituent of sentence structure in a binary analysis in which all obligatory constituents other than the subject were considered together. • The boy is running. • My teacher saw that thief yesterday. • A predicate includes constituents such as verb(saw), object (that thief), complement (yesterday), etc.

21. object • Object refers to the receiver of goal of an action. • Direct object and indirect object. --My mother bought a book. --My mother bought mea book. • Modern linguists(Chomsky, Halliday) suggest that object refers to such an item that it can become subject in a passive transformation. --John broke the vase. • However, there are some nouns which cannot be transformed into passive. --He died yesterday. --John was happy. --He climbed the mountain .

22. The relation between classes and functions • Classes and functions determine each other, but not in a one-to-one relation. • A class can perform several functions. --The boys are playing football. (sub. & obj.) --The Summer Palace. (Modifier) --He came here last month. (adv.) --He changed trains at New York. (complement) • Similarly, a function can be fulfilled by several classes. --The dog is barking. (nominal phrase) --We will arrive at five. (pronoun) --Only two-third of the population are workers. (numeral) --To run fast can be dangerous. (verbal phrase)

23. The traditional approach • The traditional approach sees a sentence as a sequence of words. Therefore,t eh study of sentence formation naturally involves the study of words. • The classification of words in terms of part of speech (词类）, such as verbs, nouns, adjectives. • The identification of functions of words in terms of subject, predicate, object and so on.

24. The part of speech and functions are called categories (范畴） • The category of nouns: number, gender, case • The category of verbs: tense, aspect, voice

25. Number, gender, case • Number: category of noun and pronoun －A book, some books －I, we, he, they • The number of nouns also influence English verbs: therefore, 3rd person singular present tense should be inflected: -s －He speaks English. －Two forms in English: singular, plural Chinese:们 俩 仨， 桌子们，三个教师们

26. Gender: a category of nouns and pronouns • English: on the whole natural: determined by the biological sex of the creature: lion-lioness; waiter-waitress. • In other languages, gender is not related to the biological sex of the creature. German, French, Latin

27. Case:Latin grammar • Nominative, vocative, accusative, genitive, dative, ablative. • Nominative: I am a student. • Vocative: 老师－教师 • Accusative: him, her, them, us. • Genitive: Tom’s, the book of Tom • Dative: give him a book, give a book to him • Ablative: He opened the door with a key. • He went away from the theater.

28. Tense and aspect • Time and tense: • Time: a universal concept, which every language is capable of expressing. • Tense: a linguistic concept, which varies from language to language. .

29. Tense and aspect: • Tense: deictic, indicating time relative to the time of utterance. Therefore, only two tense exist: past and present. Future does not use the same ways of expression. • I see her. I saw her. I will /am going to see her. • Aspect: not deictic, the time indicated is not relative to the time of utterance, but relative to the time of another event described, or implied, in the narrative

30. Aspect:reflect the perspective to view an event • Perfect-imperfect • Perfect: the completion of an action • Imperfect: the duration without completion • I read a book. • I was reading a book. • The English perfect: the perspective to view an event that happened outside of the event • The English imperfect: the perspective to view the vent when it takes place.

31. Concord and government • agreement (Concord): also known as agreement, is the requirement that the forms of two or more words in a syntactic relationship should agree with each other, shall also be characterized by the same paradigmatically marked category (categories). • Some book. a students. That men speaks Chinese. • Government: the control over the form of some words by other words in certain syntactic constructions. • A word of a certain class determines the form of others in terms of certain category. (Governor, governed) • The pronouns after a verb or a preposition should be in the accusative form. • I saw her. I heard of her.

32. Phrase, clause, sentence • Phrase is a single element of structure containing more than one word, and lacking the subject-predicate structure typical of clauses. 1. A phrase must be a group of words which form a constituent. 2. A phrase is lower on the grammatical hierarchy than clauses. --the three tallest girls (nominal phrase) --has been doing (verbal phrase) --to the beautiful door (prepositional phrase) • Word group: the extension of word of a particular class by way of modification with its main features of the class unchanged.

33. clause • A constituent with its own subject and predicate, if it is included in a larger sentence, is a Clause. • Finite clause and Infinite clause (infinitive phrase, participial phrase, gerundial phrase). • It’s’s great for a man to be free. • Having finished his homework, Tom began to clean his room. • John being away, Mary had to take up all the housework. • All our savings gone, we had to look for jobs.

34. sentence • Sentence is the minimum part of language that expresses a complete thought. • Classification of sentences • Traditional approach:

35. Functional approach

36. Bolinger (1969) • Nominal + intransitive verbal: Mother cried. • Nominal +copula+complement: Mother is young. • Nominal + transitive verbal +nominal: Mother loves dad. • Nominal + transitive verbal +nominal +nominal: Mother gave a book. • There + existential +nominal: There is time.

37. Quirk et al. (1972) • SVC: Mary is kind/ a student. • SVA: Mary is here/in the room. • SV: The child is smiling. • SVO: Somebody caught the ball. • SVOC: We have proved him wrong/ a fool. • SVOA: I put the plate on the table. • SVOO: She gives me expensive presents.

38. recursiveness • It mainly means that a phrasal constituent can be embedded within another constituent having the same category. It includes coordination, subordination, conjoining (John bought a bag and his wife bought a purse), embedding (I saw the man who had visited the park last year.), hypotactic (The man ran away when the dog barked.) and paratactic (I came; I saw; I conquered.). • The core of creativity of language.

39. Conjoining: the process where one clause is coordinated or conjoined with another • John bought a bag and his wife bought a purse • Embedding: the means by which one clause is included in the sentence in syntactic subordination • The subordinate clauses are complement, adjunct (adverbial), and relative clause • I saw the man who had visited you. (relative) • I don’t know whether I can do it. (complement) • If it rains tomorrow, I will not go there. (adverbial)

40. Beyond sentence