1. English Syntax – Lecture 1 David Brett University of Sassari 2007

2. Can you put this scrambled clause in order? girl beach Australian an sat the on sandy

3. An Australian girl sat on the sandy beach

4. How did you complete this simple task? By organising words into phrases and then organising phrases into a clause. An Australian girl Noun phrase } Clause satVerb phrase on the sandy beach Prepositional phrase

5. Phrase = Head + modifiers A girl Det (Modifier) Noun (Head) Noun Phrase

6. Phrases can contain other phrases An Australian girl AdjN Det N’ NP AP

7. What is wrong with this solution? *An sandy girl sat on the Australian beach Formal anomaly: An + word starting with a consonant Girl (Noun class> animate) excludes certain modifiers e.g. sandy, rocky, cloudy, explosive etc. normally associated with non-animate nouns

8. How about this? * The sandy beach sat on an Australian girl Verb SIT implies animate subject

9. Similarly – are all these phases acceptable? An Australian girl sat on the beautiful beach picturesque lovely good-looking

10. Beautiful, picturesque and lovely can modify both human and non-human nouns, whereas good-looking would normally be reserved for humans N.B. The heads of phrases have control over their modifiers.

11. Another example with a preposition phrase preposition phrase (Head) preposition phrase (Modifier) The man put the gun into the box the car the table

12. In this example into, the head of the PP determines what its modifiers could be These relations between heads and modifiers are called dependencies

13. An important type of dependency is that of the collocation Collocation: regular fixed combination of words Collocations can be explored using a Concordancer (special type of software for analysing large bodies of texts called Corpora hence Corpus Linguistics)

14. Adjective + work #1 good relationships, the ability to do yourbestwork, and so much more. It's the addiction that and Household Tales," 1812--15). Thisclassicwork spread German children's stories around the and Wilson governments and hiscontroversialwork against pornography and for penal reform. [p] there are those `chosen" to do thedarkestwork of the world, to function as God's continuing usually charge more to carry out privatedentalwork than the prices laid down to treat NHS 2,000 extras: the Nazis wanted thisdesirablework for their collaborators, and Carne had to s likely to be more topical than hisearlierwork and a short challenge to the censors, who are It read, `Congratulations George on yourgoodwork in Parliament.' A little later, but before vanished. I was concerned that much of thegoodwork that Deirdre had accomplished over the last 3 made the return from Markham Moor islandhardwork on the O25/7 course in North Nottinghamshire. lifting them in the autumn sounds likehardwork. But what hardy plant will flower chairman, Sir William Ryland, and throughhardwork became a director 10 years later. `You had to to win another four games and do a lot ofhardwork before we can even reach the semi-finals [p] the following August, after nine months ofhardwork. [p] I built the ponds, did the concreting, and there isn't a secret. It's abouthardwork and about good players and of course the top of the stack and yeah I think it washardwork. They were all very black when they came in. and [tc text=pause] [F01] Mm. Sounds likehardwork. [F02] Yeah. [ZGY] [F03] Yes but it did a lot bifocal movements of the surreal,hour-longwork, and for Dmitry Kitaenko the orchestra played them in the classroom. It's vital,importantwork. For more information, please call or write

15. Adjective + work #2 to develop the group's agenda to includemorework on education, custody and parenting. [p] do A but not if you do B we'd probably getmorework done that was of direct value to us. But most all the other institutions put together.Mostwork in Brussels, but some as based in Luxembourg ground is [tc text=pause] there's not thatmuchwork done by the people in reality but that the more charitable than the dramatists'otherwork. It is, too, steadier in [p] dramatic sat there oohing and aahing over theirownwork, much as the characters in the picture ooh and to see you here (in Brescia) inpastoralwork or as a seminary professor 4 But it was not to er really enthusiastic in thepracticalwork [F01] Mm [F02] Erm Lindsay I would say would the second year, students beginpreliminarywork on their dissertation which is on a topic of Until 14 November. [p] Agnes Martin:recentwork by distinguished 80 year old American abstract in securities dealing, trading andsaleswork. The sharp downturn in market activity since He's his equivalent. He can do thesamework as he's doing and yet that one gets more money be found in non-sexual friendships,satisfyingwork, and the development of wide and absorbing going bust in '91, just as their firstsingle,work Hard (To Enjoy Yourself was grabbing them some in 1865, carries out evangelistic andsocialwork in more than ninety countries. The BBC Moscow Jordan) of The Political Dimensions ofSocialwork (Blackwells, 1983) and the author of The necessary to look at the `value" base ofsocialwork, as this informs our understanding of, and within the local authority or from thesocialwork setting. In all my twelve years" experience, I and economic inequality. Pre-1945theoreticalwork on economic development C. Clark and the per amounts if we are to carry out all thevitalwork that we aim to do. [p] Headquarters can supply would be somewhat ungracious: muchvoluntarywork had been undertaken in its compilation. [p]

16. Tests for phrases Transposition Substitution Ellipsis

17. Transposition Many sequences of words can be moved together into different slots in a clause E.g. An Australian girl vandalised the statue. (Active) The statue was vandalised by an Australian girl. (Passive)

18. Substitution A single word can substitute the words forming a phrase An Australian girl vandalised the statue in Rome. E.g. She vandalised the statue in Rome. An Australian girl vandalised it in Rome. An Australian girl vandalised the statue there.

19. Ellipsis An Australian girl vandalised the statue. An Australian girl attacked a police officer. =>An Australian girl vandalised the statue and [An Australian girl] attacked a police officer.

20. Constituent structure Words are organised into phrases Phrases are organised into clauses Clauses are organised into sentences The notion of this hierarchical organisation is called constituent structure.

21. Clauses Clauses are groups of phrases Just like phrases, clauses are composed of a head and optional modifiers The head of a clause is always a verb This may be counter-intuitive, we may prefer to consider the subject more important, however consider: It’s raining again.

22. Complements and adjuncts Which of the following clauses would you consider to be complete? She sang.He gave. She sang happily.He gave me. She sang happily to her daughter. He gave me a newspaper.

23. Similarly, could any of the phrases in the clauses below be omitted? She paid for the meal by credit card. On Friday, it was far too cold. I sent a fax to that nice woman in the insurance office. Last year we bought my mother a present for her birthday

24. She paid for the meal [by credit card]. [On Friday,] it was far too cold. I sent a fax [to that nice woman in the insurance office]. [Last year] we bought my mother a present [for her birthday]

25. Complements and adjuncts Complements are modifiers that must be present The presence of Adjuncts is not mandatory E.g. The other day he gave me a newspaper from Malta. me and a newspaper are both complements The other day and from Malta are both adjuncts

26. Constructions Copula constructions link subject and other phrase These can be of three types: NP Copula APJack is very happy. Ascriptive NP Copula NPJack is a boy.Equative NP Copula PPJack is in the class. Locative

27. Other qualities of constructions INTERROGATIVE V. DECLARATIVE INTERROGATIVE: 1.YES/NO 2.WH- ACTIVE V. PASSIVE DIRECT OBJECT v. OBLIQUE OBJECT v. DOUBLE OBJECT

28. Example 1 The dog eats brown biscuits [NON-COPULA, DECLARATIVE, DIRECT OBJECT, ACTIVE]

29. Example 2 Where are the brown biscuits? [COPULA, INTERROGATIVE, WH, LOCATIVE]

30. Example 3 How many linguists was the light bulb changed by? [NON-COPULA, INTERROGATIVE, WH, PASSIVE]