THE NOTION OF SYNTAX
(Grammatical And Ungrammatical)
A Paper
Asked
To Fulfill The Syntax Subject
Lecturer
: Kheryadi, M. Pd
Group 6 TBI 5
A
Siti Fitri Mardiah (152301793)
Eliya Nurul Aini (15230178)
Undi Siti Sutiawati (152301795)
ENGLISH EDUCATION DEPARTMENT
FACULTY OF EDUCATION AND TEACHER TRAINING
THE STATE ISLAMIC UNIVERSITY
SULTAN MAULANA HASANUDDIN BANTEN
2017.
A.
Definition of Grammatical
and ungrammatical
In linguistics (particularly in generative
grammar), the term grammaticality
refers to the conformity of a sentence to the rules defined by a specific grammar of a language. also called well-formedness and grammaticalness.
Contrast with ungrammatical.
In descriptive grammar, the term ungrammatical
refers to an irregular word group or sentence structure that makes little
apparent sense because it disregards the syntactic conventions of the language. Contrast with grammaticality.
In prescriptive
grammar, ungrammatical
may refer to a word group or sentence structure that fails to conform to the
"proper" way of speaking or writing, according to the standards set
by some authority. Also called grammatical
error. Contrast with
correctness
In the previous chapter, we
analyzed English sentences with PS rules. For example, the PS rule ‘S →NP VP’
represents the basic rule for forming well-formed English sentences. As wehave
seen, such PS rules allow us to represent the constituent structure of a given sentence
in terms of lexical and phrasal syntactic categories. There are other
dimensions of the analysis of sentences; one such way is using the notion of grammatical
functions such as subject and object:
1)
a. Syntactic categories: N, A, V, P, NP, VP, AP, ...
b. Grammatical functions: SUBJ (Subject), OBJ
(Object), MOD (Modifier),PRED (Predicate), ...
The notions such as SUBJ,
OBJ and PRED represent the grammatical function each constituent plays in the
given sentence. For example, consider one simple sentence:
2)
The monkey scratched a boy on Monday.
This sentence can be
structurally represented in terms of either syntactic categories or grammatical
functions as in the following:
3)
a. [S[NP The monkey] [VP scratched [NP a boy][PP on
Monday]]].
b.[S[SUBJ The monkey] [PRED scratched [OBJ a boy][MOD on
Monday]]].
As shown
here, the monkey is an NP in terms of its syntactic form, but is the SUBJ (subject)
in terms of its grammatical function. The NP a boy is the OBJ (object) while
the verb scratched functions as a predicator. More importantly, we consider the
entire VP to be a PRED (predicate) which describes a property of the subject. On
Monday is a PP in terms of its syntactic category, but serves as a MOD
(modifier) here. We also can represent sentence structure in terms of semantic
roles. Constituents can be considered in terms of conceptual notions of
semantic roles such as agent, patient, location, instrument, and the like. A
semantic role denotes the underlying relationship that a participant has with
the relation of the clause, expressed by the main verb. Consider the semantic
roles of the NPs in the following two sentences:
4)
a. John tagged the monkey in the forest.
b. The monkey was tagged in the forest by John.
Both of these sentences
describe a situation in which someone named John tagged a particular monkey. In
this situation, John is the agent and the monkey is the patient of the tagging
event. This in turn means that in both cases, John has the semantic role of
agent (agt), whereas the monkey has the semantic role of patient (pat), even
though their grammatical functions are different. We thus can assign the
following semantic roles to each constituent of the examples:
5)
a. [[agt John] [pred tagged [pat the monkey] [loc in
the forest]]].
b. [[pat The monkey] [pred was tagged [loc in the
wood] [agt by John]]].
As noted here, in addition
to agent and patient, we have predicate (pred) and locative (loc) which also
express the semantic role that each phrase performs in the described situation.
Throughout this book we will see that English grammar refers to these three
different levels of information (syntactic category, grammatical function, and
semantic role), and they interact with each other. For now, it may appear that
they are equivalent classifications : for example, an agent is a subject and an
NP, and a patient is an object and an NP. However, as we get further into the
details of the grammar, we will see many ways in which the three levels are not
simply co-extensive.
A.
Grammatical Functions
How can
we identify the grammatical function of a given constituent? Several tests can
be used to determine grammatical function, as we show here.
a.
Subjects
Consider the following pair
of examples:
6)
a. [The cat] [devoured [the rat]].
b. [The rat] [devoured [the
cat]].
These two
sentences have exactly the same words and have the same Predicator devoured.Yet
they are significantly different in meaning, and the main difference comes from
what serves as subject or object with respect to the predicator. In (6a), the
subject is the cat, whereas in (6b) it is the rat, and the object is the
rat in (6a) but the cat in (6b). The most common structure for a sentence seems
to be one in which the NP subject is the one who performs the action
denoted by the verb (thus having the semantic role of agent). However, this is
not always so:
7)
a. My brother wears a green overcoat.
b. This car stinks.
c. It rains.
d. The committee disliked her proposal.
Wearing a green overcoat,
stinking, raining, or disliking one’s proposal are not agentive activities;
they indicate stative descriptions or situations. Such facts show that we
cannot rely on the semantic roles of agent for determining subjecthood. More
reliable tests for subjecthood come from syntactic tests such as agreement, tag
questions, and subject-auxiliary inversion.
Agreement : The main verb of a sentence agrees with the subject
in English:
8)
a. She never writes/*write home.
b. These books *saddens/sadden me.
c. Our neighbor takes/*take his children to school in
his car.
As we noted in Chapter 1,
simply being closer to the main verb does not entail subjecthood:
9)
a. The book, including all the chapters in the first
section, is/*are very
interesting.
b. The effectiveness of teaching and learning
*depend/depends on several factors.
c. The tornadoes that tear through this county every
spring *is/are more than just a nuisance.
The subject in each example
is book, effectiveness,and tornadoes respectively, even though there are nouns
closer to the main verb. This indicates that it is not simply the linear
position of the NP that determines agreement; rather, agreement shows us what
the subject of the sentence is. Tag questions : A tag question, a short
question tagged onto the end of an utterance, is also a reliable subjecthood
test:
10) a. The lady singing with a
boy is a genius, isn’t she/*isn’t he?
b. With their teacher, the kids have arrived safely,
haven’t they/ *hasn’t he?
The pronoun in the tag
question agrees with the subject in person, number, and gender –it refers back
to the subject, but not necessarily to the closest NP, nor to the most topical one.
The pronoun she in (10a) shows us that lady is the head of the subject NP in
that example, and they in (10b) leads us to assign the same property to kids.
The generalization is that a tag question must contain a pronoun which
identifies the subject of the clause to which the tag is attached.
Subject-auxiliary inversion: In forming questions and
other sentence-types, English has subject-auxiliary inversion, which applies
only to the subject.
11) a. This teacher is a genius.
b. The kids have arrived safely.
c. It could be more detrimental.
12) a. Is this teacher a
genius?
b. Have the kids arrived safely?
c. Could it be more detrimental?
As seen here, the formation
of ‘Yes/No questions’ such as these involves the first tensed auxiliary verb
moving across the subject: more formally, the auxiliary verb is inverted with
respect to the subject, hence the term ‘subject-auxiliary inversion’. This is
not possible with a non-subject:
13) a. The kids in our class
have arrived safely
b. *Have in our class the kids arrived safely?
c. Subject-auxiliary inversion provides another
reliable subjecthood test.
b.
Direct and Indirect Objects
A direct
object (DO) is canonically an NP, undergoing the process denoted by the verb:
14) a. His girlfriend bought
this computer.
b. That silly fool broke the teapot.
However, this is not a solid generalization. The
objects (OBJ) in (15a) and (15b) are not really affected by the action. In
(15a) the dog is experiencing something, and in (15b) the thunder is somehow
causing some feeling in the dog:
15) a. Thunder frightens [the
dog].
b. The dog fears [thunder].
Once again, the data show
us that we cannot identify the object based on semantic roles. A much more firm
criterion is the syntactic construction of passivization , in which a notional direct
object appears as subject. The sentences in (16) can be turned into passive
sentences in (17):
16) a. His girlfriend bought
this computer for him.
b. The child broke the teapot by accident.
17) a. This computer was bought
for him by his girlfriend.
b. The teapot was broken by the child by accident
What we can notice here is
that the objects in (16) are ‘promoted’ to subject in the passive sentences.
The test comes from the fact that non-object NPs cannot be promoted to the
subject:
18) a. This item belongs to the
student.
b. *The student is belonged to by this item.
19) a. He remained a good
friend to me.
b. *A good friend is remained to me (by him).
The objects that undergo
passivization are direct objects, distinct from indirect objects. An indirect
object (IO) is one which precedes a direct object (DO), as in (20); IOs are NPs
and have the semantic roles of goal, recipient, or benefactive:
20) a. I threw [the puppy] [the
ball]. (IO = goal)
b. John gave [the boys] [the CDs]. (IO = recipient)
c. My mother baked [me] [a birthday cake]. (IO =
benefactive)
In examples like (20), passive has the property of
making the IO into the subject.
21) a. The boys were given the
CDs (by John).
b. She was sent a review copy of the book (by the publisher).
Note that sentences with
the IO-DO order are different from those where the semantic role of the IO is
expressed as an oblique PP, following the DO (such a process is sometimes
called dative alteration):
22) a. John gave the CDs to the
boys.
b. The publisher sent a review copy of the book to
her.
c. My mother baked a cake for me.
In this kind of example, it is once again the DO which
can be passivized, giving examples like the following:
23) a. The CDs were given to
the boys by John.
b. A review copy of the book was sent to her by the
publisher.
c. This nice cake was baked for me by my mother.
c.
Predicative Complements
There
also are NPs which follow a verb but which do not behave as DOs or IOs.
Consider the following sentences:
24) a. This is my ultimate goal
b. Michelle became an architect
25) a. They elected Graham chairman
b. I consider Andrew the best writer
The italicized elements here are traditionally calle d
‘predicative complements’ in the sense that they function as the predicate of
the subject or the object. However, even though they are NPs, they do not
passivize:
26) a. *Chairman was elected
Graham.
b. *The best writer was considered Andrew.
The difference between
objects and predicative complements can also be seen in the following contrast:
27) a. John made Kim a great
doll.
b. John made Kim a great doctor.
Even though the italicized expressions here are both
NPs, they function differently. The NP a great doll in (27a) is the direct
object, as in John made a great doll for Kim , whereas the NP a great doctor in
(27b) cannot be an object: it serves as the predicate of the object Kim .Ifwe think
of part of the meaning informally, only in the second example would we say that
the final NP describes the NP Kim
28) a. (27) a: Kim ≠ a great doll
b. (27) b: Kim = a great doctor
In addition, phrases other than NPs can serve as
predicative complements:
29) a. The situation became terrible
b. This map is what he wants
c. The message was that you should come on time
30) a. I made Kim angry
b. I consider him immoral
c. I regard Andrew as the best writer
d. They spoil their kids rotten
The italicized complements
function to predicate a property of the subject in (29) and of the object in
(30).
d.
Oblique Complements
Consider now the italicized
expressions in (31):
31) a. John put books in the box
b. John talked to Bill about the exam
c. She reminded him of the last time they met
d. They would inform Mary of any success they have
made.
These italicized expressions are neither objects nor
predicative complements. Since their pres- ence is obligatory, for syntactic
well-formedness, they are called oblique complements. Roughly speaking,
‘oblique’ contrasts with the ‘direct’ functions of subject and object, and
oblique phrases are typically expressed as PPs in English. As we have seen
before, most ditransitive verbs can also take oblique complements:
32) a. John gave a book to the
student
b. John bought a book for the student
The PPs here, which cannot be objects since they are
not NPs, also do not serve as predicate of the subject or object – they relate
directly to the verb, as oblique complements.
e.
Modifiers
The
functions of DO, IO, predicative complement, and oblique complement all have
one com- mon property: they are all selected by the verb, and we view them as
being present to ‘complement’ the verb to form a legitimate VP. Hence, these
are called complements (COMPS) ,and typically they cannot be omitted.
Unlike these COMPS, there are expressions which do not
complement the predicate in the same way, and which are truly optional:
33) a. The bus stopped suddenly
b. Shakespeare wrote his plays a long time ago
c. They went to the theater in London
d. He failed chemistry because he can’t understand it
The italicized expressions
here are all optional and function as modi fiers (also called ‘adjuncts’ or ‘adverbial’
expressions). These modi fiers specify the manner, location, time, or reason, among
many other properties, of the situations expressed by the given sentences –
informally, they are the ( how, when, where ,and why ) phrases. One additional characteristic
of modi fiers is that they can be stacked up, whereas complements cannot.
34) a. *John gave Tom [a book]
[a record].
b. I saw this film [several times] [last year] [during
the summer].
As shown here, temporal adjuncts like several times and
last year can be repeated, whereas the two complements a book and a record in
(34a) cannot. Of course, temporal adjuncts do not become the subject of a
passive sentence, suggesting that they cannot serve as objects.
35) a. My uncle visited today.
b. *Today was visited by my uncle
B.
REFERENCES
Kim, Jong-Bok and
Peter Sells. 2008, English Syntax: An Introduction, Korea : Center For
The Study Of Language And Information,
Miller, Jim. 2002, An Introduction to English
Syntax, Great Britain : Edinburgh University Press
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