The Representation of Syntax

INTRODUCTION

            Many references which describe about syntax according to rule but difficult to understanding. However, many students or undergraduate understand about of syntax. Our purpose in this article is to easier about syntax and give result to student or undergraduate, we describe the syntax in this way, simple. We will first discuss about transformational rules of syntax and then describe of syntax the following method by parsing diagrams, finally. We will present some examples of more complex syntactic structure in language

            Syntax is the grammatical arrangement of words in a sentence. The syntax, which governs the structure of sentences. This section is an introduction to syntax in language as far as it relevant to the content of this book. It is not meant to be a rigorous discussion of linguistics. What I am describing is a simple orthodox view of the grammar of language. Some more complex models are discussed by linguists but these are beyond the scope of this description. This section is include for those readers who would like a brief overview without having to refer separately to a linguistics textbook. Those who would like to read more about the various linguistics theories should refer to the bibliography for references to linguistics books and to sites on the web covering linguistics topics.

            Languages have rules. The rules of a language are called the grammar. The reason for these rules is that a person needs to be able to speak an indeterminately large number of sentences in a lifetime. The effort would be impossibly great if each sentence had to be learnt separately.

            By learning the rules for connecting word it is possible to create an infinitive number of sentences, all of which are meaningful to a person who knows the syntax. Thus it is possible to construct many sentences that the speaker has never heard before.

            A finite number of rules facilitatis an infinite number of sentences that can be simultaneously understood by both the speakers and the listener.

            In order for this to work with any degree of success, the rules have to be precise and have to be consistenly adhered to. These rules cover such things as: the way words are constructed; the way the endings of words are changed according to context (inflection); the classification of words into parts of speech  (nouns, verbs, pronouns, etc.); the way parts of speech are connected together.

            The rules of grammar do not have to be explicitly understood by the speaker of the language or the listener.

            The majority of native speakers of a language will have no formal knowledge of the grammar of a language but are still capable of speaking the language gammatically to a great degree of accuracy. Native speakers of language assimilate these rules subconsciously while the language is being learned as a child.

The Representation of Syntax

In Linguistics, the syntax of sentences can be described by different methods, for instance.

The syntax can be described, by the following methods :

1.      Transformational rules

      sentence                     Noun Phrase   +  Verb Phrase

            Verb Phrase               Verb   +    Noun Phrase

            Noun Phrase             Article   +    Noun

            Adjective Phrase        (Deg) + Adjective

            Prepositional Phrase          Prepositional + Noun Phrase

Sentence is a group of words, usually containing a verb, which expresses a thought in the form of a statement, question, instruction or exclamation and starts with a capital letter when written.

Phrase is a group of words which make sense, but not complete sense.

Noun Phrase is a group of words that does the work of a Noun.

Verb Phrase is a group of words that does the work of a Verb.

Adjective Phrase is a group of words that does the work of a  adjective

Prepositional Phrase is a group of words that does the work of a  preposition

2.      parsing diagrams

                                        Sentences


                  Noun Phrase                Verb Phrase

                     (Subject)                    (Predicate)

         Article          Noun                Verb                Noun Phrase

                                                                                 ( Object )

                                                                              Article Noun

Where in the above example,

a.      The puply found the child

            The child and the pupply belong to the syntatic category Noun Phrase( NP ). Noun Phrase may be easly intensified because they can function as “subject” in a sentences, and only Noun Phrase may do son. Noun Phrase generally contain a Noun or Pronoun. Part of syntatic knowledge is knowing he syntatic categories of the language. You know what a Noun Phrase is even if you have never heard the term before.

b.   Reduce taxes are at the heart of the debate about policy.

            So, it seems clear that the grammatical properties of a phrase like reduce taxes are determinated by the verb reduce, and not by the noun taxes. We can say that the verb reduce is the head of the phrase reduce taxes, and conversely that the phrase reduce taxes is a projection of the verb reduce. Since the head of the resulting phrase is the verb  reduce, the phrase reduce taxes is a verb phrase.

                                     Part of Syntax

                                                S


                        The child                     found the puppy

                             NP                                        VP      

                        The      Child                Found              the puppy

                        Art           N                       V                        NP

                                                                                    The      Puppy
                                                                                    Art           N
           

            The tree shows that a Verb Phrase may also consists of a Verb followed by Noun Phrase followed by a Prepositional Phrase (PP). Additionally, a Prepositional Phrase is a Preposition (P) followed by a Noun Phrase. This tree ilustrates that a Noun Phrase may occur in the different structual positions below the sentence, below the VP node and below the PP node.

3.      It is possible to construct sentence which are more complex than the example above. This is done by embedding further phrases within the basic structure.  For example, in the sentence :

“ the boy with red shorts kicked the ball.”

“ with red shorts “ is a prepositional phrase that further describes “ the boy “.

This can represented, within the basic sentence structure.

Complex sentences

            So far, we have looked at simple sentences – i.e. Sentences which comprise a single clause (Hence, all the clause in 221, 222 and 224-31 above are simple sentences). However, alongside these we also find complex sentences-i.e. Sentences which contain more than one clause. In this connection, consider the structure of the following sentences:

if we take a clause to be a structure comprising ( at least ) a subject and a predicate, it follows that there are two different clauses the smokes clause on the one hand, and the knows clause on the other. The smokes clause comprises the subject John and the predicate smokes; the knows clause comprises the subject Mary, the predicate knows and the complement John smokes. So, the complement of knows here is it self a clause. The smokes clause is a complement clause (because it serves as the complement of (knows), while the knows clause is the main clause.

                                               Sentence


                        NP                                            VP

            NP                              PP                      Verb                NP

Art.                  N          Prep.    NP                    Art.                  N

                                             Adj.      N

the                   boy            with                 red shorts  the                   ball     

                                                            CONCLUSION

            Syntax is the branch of grammar working with “Syntax elments”. Syntax defines relational rules governing the logic structure of syntax elements. “Syntax elements” are words grouped on “Interdependent relational functionality”. Syntax elements exist onlymwithin the sentences structure, words are studied as morphologic sentence elements.
            However, we will hope these article can be help you, and give your information about syntax. These article are not sufficient to understand the topics presented – far from that. For accurate and detailed information we recommend LOGICALLY STRUCTURED ENGLISH GRAMMAR.

REFERENCE

Aitchison, Jean.1972. Linguistics an Introduction. october 10, 2011, from             http://www.harmony.org.uk/book/linguistics_syntax.htm

Radford, Andrew., Martin Atkinson, David Britain,   Harald Clasen, & Andrew Spencer. 2009. Second Edition. An Introduction to Lingustics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Road, Anson. 2008 . Cambrige Advance Learner’s Dictionary. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Roslaini. 2011 . Grammar 2. Palembang: University             of PGRI.

Sulaiman, Mas’ud. 1999 . Introduction of Lingusitics. Palembang. University of PGRI.