Syntax Flashcards
Syntax
the investigation of the parts sentences consist of and thier connections and dependencies. More strict than Diction.
Sentence Structure/Syntactic Units
They are constituents or phrases that can be combined to form organised combinations of words.
Pronominalisation
A test in order to prove constituent status by substituting a constituent with a pronoun/pro-form.
Movement
A test for determining constituent/prhase status. If a string of words can be moved to other sntential positions, it is proof of the string’s being a constituent/phrase.
Sentential position of subjects in English
severely resticted, in that they generally occur before the verb complex.
Coordination test
Test to determine constituent/phrase status. Only constituents that can be coordinated by the coordinating conjunction ‘and’ (this conjunction has the wonderful property of combining only constituents of the same kind.) So, if we can coordinate two expressions with ‘and’, this is good evidence for their being constituents.
Gapping
Test to determine constituent/phrase status by adding a tag question; works with certain types of phrases/constituents.
Sentence Fragment test
Test to determine constituent/phrase status by asking a who, what, where, when question for each hypothesized constituent/phrase.
How do we determine whether a given word is the most important element?
There are a number of tests through semantics, structural relations, distribution, and projections that determine whether a given word is the most important element.
Semantic
The subfield studies meaning and can be used to indicate the head of a phrase/constituent when the word is semantically the most important element.
Head
Most important element of a phrase/constituent
PP
Prepositional phrases [to the station]
AP
Adjective phrases [proud of his results
VP
Verb Phrases [go to the station]
ADVP
Adverb Phrases [incredibly often]
Structural relation
Indicates the head of a phrase/constituent in relation to the other constituents/phrases. Ex: in VP (verb phrases) and PP (prepositional phrases) the head assigns case to the constituent to its right.