Syntactic categories The basic building blocks of syntactic

Syntactic categories • The basic building blocks of syntactic structure are called SYNTACTIC CATEGORIES. • There are two subtypes of syntactic categories: LEXICAL CATEGORIES and PHRASAL CATEGORIES. • Lexical categories (noun, verb, adjective) cannot be divided into distinct units unlike phrasal categories.

• When talking about syntactic structures, we use the term lexical category rather than word class. • Lexical categories consist of units that do not have internal syntactic structure themselves. • A certain noun may have morphological structure (prefixes, suffixes, etc. ) but is not made up of syntactically distinct units. • Phrasal categories, on the other hand, may have internal syntactic structure.

• A noun phrase must contain a noun. It can also include adjectives and many other units that “clump together” with the noun. • A phrasal category may consist of only one unit.

Grammatical relations (relational functions) • Grammatical relations (GRs) are syntactic functions of nominal elements in clauses. Consider the following: • subject, • direct object, • indirect object, • oblique, • subject complement, and • object complement.

• Direct and Indirect Objects are Complements of particular predicate types (e. g. , transitive and bitransitive predicates), • Obliques are Complements of prepositions, and Subject and Object Complements are Complements of certain other predicates.

Modification • The terms “modification” and “modifier” are used in a number of ways in traditional and theoretical discussions of grammar.

Tests for constituent structure • Movement Constituency Test • Movement test is one of the simplest constituency tests in syntax. • According to this test, two or more words form a syntactic constituent if they can be moved together as one single unit to another position in the same sentence. • This position is generally towards the front of the sentence. • It is called fronting in some textbooks.

Examples: • The man sat on the chair. • On the chair, the boy sat. • The dog is what watched a fluffy cat. What watched a fluffy cat is the dog. • We move the constituents without affecting the grammatical structure of the sentence.

Substitution • The second major test for constituency is SUBSTITUTION. • It means that a constituent may be replaced by a substitute word, whereas other random strings of units may not. • The substitute words are sometimes called PROFORMS, of which pronouns and the PRO-VERB (so) do in English are subtypes.

• For example, so do can substitute for the verb escape in the following: • The Duke escaped and so did Aileron. • This means that Aileron also escaped. Therefore escape is a constituent all on its own. The dog watched a fluffy cat and so did the elephant.

a. b. The little boy fed the cat. → Black cats detest green peas. He fed her. → They detest them.

Interposition • Interposition is based on the fact that elements that affect a whole phrasal category can more easily be inserted between constituents of that category than inside of its constituents. • For example, the adverb surreptitiously can only be inserted in certain places in a clause:

Coordination • The next secondary test for constituency is COORDINATION. • This test is based on the universal linguistic principle that only units that are of the same category can be linked together by the syntactic construction known as coordination – often expressed with the word and in English. • For example, the following are acceptable coordinate structures:

Omissibility • Every language allows ELLIPSIS – the omission of certain words or phrases when it is obvious from the context what those words or phrases would be. • For example, the following yes/no question may elicit any number of affirmative responses:

Clefting • If a string can appear as the focus of an it cleft, then it is a constituent.

Time and reality

Basic concepts • Tense expresses the time of discourse world situations in relation to some reference point, usually the time of speaking; • Aspect describes the internal temporal “shape” of a situation; • Mode relates the speaker’s commitment to the probability that the situation is real, necessary, or likely.

Tense • Tense is the grammatical expression of relative time. • Situations being communicated in clauses are often anchored in relation to a reference point, usually the moment the clause is spoken, i. e. , “now. ” • English verbs have three morphological forms that are usually described as “present tense” (two forms) and “past tense”.

• The reference point can be shifted to some other point in time, or reality. • Furthermore, “now” is constantly changing. Really, the only kinds of situations that can truly be said to hold “now” are situations lasting for a period of time. • An action that occurs in an instant in time cannot easily be referred to in the present, since by the time you refer to it, it’s already past!

• Some of the usages of the morphological present tense. The examples in (1), in which present tense really does refer to the moment of speaking, illustrate the major usage. The others are also very common.

The performative verb can only be used in the present tense and spoken in the first person.