Syntax Flashcards
Phrases, Clauses and Sentences
Phrases
• A group of words that has no finite verb e.g. ‘red
balloon’ (noun phrase), ‘very beautiful’ (adjectival
phrase), ‘extremely quickly’ (adverb phrase), ‘in the
box’ (prepositional phrase).
Clauses
• A grammatical unit larger than a phrase and
which usually contains a verb eg, “If I go”
Sentences
•
Sentence Type (Total 4)
•Declaratives - (Function is to provide
information, observations or
statements.) The sky is blue, He is very tired today
•Imperatives - (Give a direct order or
instruction.)
Halt! You must obey rules of the school!
•Interrogatives - (Used to frame questions,
sometimes rhetorical.)
Why are you going home? When is the eclipse?
•Exclamatives - (They indicate high levels
of feeling or emotion and emphasise
what is being said.)
Oh my goodness! That is so sad!
Clause Structure NEED TO WORK ON
Subject - noun that does the action Object - gets acted on Complement - The term complement clause is extended by some analysts to include clauses selected by nouns or adjectives. I heard the evidence that he did it. I am sure that he did it. I am not certain what we did.
Adverbial
·A phrase that is optionally included in a predicate.
Adverbials show a range of different meanings
and flexibility of word order; e.g. He eventually
collapsed; Eventually he collapsed; He collapsed
eventually
Sentence Structure (Total 5)
Simple
·Contain a single main clause.
Complex
·Contain a single main clause and one or more
subordinate clauses.
Compound
·Contain at least two main clauses
Compound-complex
· Must have at least three clauses in total.
· At least two main clauses and at least one
subordinate clause.
Sentence fragments
· Typically used in informal or casual written texts.
Active - He sits on the mat
and Passive tense - The mat is sat on by him
Agent less passive - The mat is sat on??- can hide the subject
The vase got broken
The car got scratched.
Sentence structure - Ellipsis
are pauses in sentences e.g. well…
Sentence structure - Nominalisation
The conversion of verbs into nouns, e.g. ‘the failure’ from ‘fail’
Coordination and Subordination
Coordination
·(The link of two language units that have
the same status.)
independent clause has a subject and a verb and expresses a complete thought-it can stand alone.
Subordination
·(When one clause is subordinate to/dependent on
another in a sentence. Subordination is usually
signalled by a linking word (‘subordinate
conjunction’), e.g. although, when, if, because.)
A subordinate clause has a subject and a verb, but it cannot stand alone. It doesn’t express a complete thought.
e.g. Because I said so (I=subject; said=verb)
- When I was five (I=subject; was=verb)
- Since it will rain today (it=subject; will rain=verb)
Syntactic patterning
Antithesis - opposites - “My only love sprung from my only hate!”
Listing - listing examples of something. The federal government should lead, guide, reassure and make legislation . But the federal government lies, obfuscates, ignores and wastes money.
Parallelism - Alice ran into the room, into the garden, and into our hearts.”