Transcript Chapter Four From Word to Text

Chapter Four
From Word to Text
What’s the distinction of
Morphology and Syntax?
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Morphology is a branch in linguistics which
studies the internal structure of words and the
rules by which words are formed.
Syntax is a subfield of linguistics that studies the
sentence structure of language.
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SYNTAX is the study of the rules governing
the ways different constituents are combined
to form sentences in a language, or the
study of the interrelationships between
elements in sentence structures.
Syntactic relations
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Syntactic relations can be analyzed into
three kinds:
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positional relations
relations of substitutability
relations of co-occurrence
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Positional Relation
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For language to fulfill its communicative
function, it must have a way to mark the
grammatical roles of the various phrases
that can occur in a clause.
The boy kicked the ball
NP1
NP2
Subject
Object
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Positional relation, or WORD ORDER,
refers to the sequential arrangement of
words in a language.
If the words in a sentence fail to occur in a
fixed order required by the convention of a
language, one tends to produce an utterance
either ungrammatical or nonsensical at all.
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The boy kicked the ball
*Boy the ball kicked the
*The ball kicked the boy
The teacher saw the students
The students saw the teacher
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Positional relations are a manifestation of one
aspect of Syntagmatic Relations（横组合关系）
observed by F. de Saussure.
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They are also called Horizontal Relations
or simply Chain Relations.
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Word order is one of the basic ways to classify
languages in the world:
SVO, VSO, SOV, OVS, OSV, and VOS.
English belongs to SVO type, though this does
not mean that SVO is the only possible word
order.
Relation of Substitutability
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The RELATION OF SUBSTITUTABILITY
refers to classes or sets of words substitutable
for each other grammatically in sentences with
the same structure.
The ______ smiles.
man
boy
girl
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It also refers to groups of more than one
word which may be jointly substitutable
grammatically for a single word of a
particular set.
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This is what Saussure called ASSOCIATIVE
relations, or in Hjemslev's term,
PARADIGMATIC relations.
To make it more understandable, they are
called VERTICAL relations or CHOICE
relations.
Relation of Co-occurrence
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It means that words of different sets of
clauses may permit, or require, the
occurrence of a word of another set or class
to form a sentence or a particular part of a
sentence.
For instance, a nominal phrase can be
preceded by a determiner and adjective(s)
and followed by a verbal phrase.
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Relations of co-occurrence partly belong to
syntagmatic relations, partly to
paradigmatic relations.
Grammatical construction and its
constituents
Grammatical Construction
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GRAMMATICAL CONSTRUCTION or
CONSTRUCT can be used to refer to any
syntactic construct which is assigned one or
more conventional functions in a language,
together with whatever is linguistically
conventionalized about its contribution to
the meaning or use the construct contains.
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On the level of syntax, we distinguish for any
construction in a language its external and its
internal properties.
The external syntax of a construction refers to
the properties of the construction as a whole,
that is to say, anything speakers know about
the construction that is relevant to the larger
syntactic contexts in which it is welcome.
For instance, the different terms such as
clausal type, phrasal type are assigned to the
properties of the constructions respectively.
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The internal syntax of a construction is
really a description of the construction’s
“make-up”, with the terms such as “subject,
predicate, object, determiner, noun”.
Subject
+
Mary (subject)
Determiner
Verb
+
ate (verb)
+
this (determiner)
Noun (phrasal type)
edition (noun)
Object (clausal type)
an apple (object).
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In the context of discourse/text analysis,
construction refers to a token of a
constructional type.
The sentence The girl is giggling is recognized
as “Subject + Predicate” type, but it is realized
in a string The + girl + is + giggling.
It is the construction in this sense that can be
analyzed into constituents.
Immediate Constituents
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CONSTITUENT is a term used in
structural sentence analysis for every
linguistic unit, which is a part of a larger
linguistic unit. Several constituents together
form a construction:
for example, in the sentence The girl ate the
apple, S (A), the girl (B), ate the apple (C),
each part is a constituent.
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Constituents can be joined together with other
constituents to form larger units.
If two constituents, in the case of the example
above, B (the girl) and C (ate the apple), are
joined to form a hierarchically higher
constituent A (“S” , here a sentence ), then B
and C are said to be immediate constituents
of A.
A (Sentence)
B
The girl
C
ate the apple
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This tree contains three Nodes.
The top-most node, A, is the mother of the
two lower nodes, B and C.
B and C are daughters of the same mother,
and so we refer to them as sister nodes.
The simple tree in the above represents a
constituent of category A which is
composed of two parts, one of category B
and the other of category C, occurring in
that order.
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To dismantle a grammatical construction in
this way is called IMMEDIATE
CONSTITUENT ANALYSIS or IC analysis.
The immediate constituents themselves can be
constructions of specific types, for instance,
the nominal phrase “The girl” can be further
analysed into “The (Determiner) + girl
(Noun)”.
Thus, “The girl” is the construction of a
nominal phrase, whereas “The” and “girl” are
its constituents.
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When a tree diagram is used to represent the
constituent structure of a grammatical unit
(e.g. a phrase or sentence), syntactic
categories are used to label the nodes; the
most common of these are listed in the
following:
Word-level
N= noun
A=adjective
V=verb
P=preposition
Det=determiner
Adv=adverb
Conj=conjunction
Phrasal
NP=noun phrase
AP=adjective phrase
VP=verb phrase
PP=preposition phrase
S=sentence or clause
S
Tree diagram
NP
Det
VP
N
V
NP
Det
N
The girl ate the apple
The girl ate the apple
Bracketing
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In contrast to tree diagram, BRACKETING
is not so common, but it is an economic
notation in representing the constituent
structure of a grammatical unit.
(((The) (girl)) ((ate) ((the) (apple))))
[[[The] [girl]] [[ate] [[the] [apple]]]]
Endocentric and Exocentric Constructions
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The syntactic constructions analysed are of
two main types: endocentric and exocentric
constructions, depending on their
distribution and the relation between their
constituents.
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ENDOCENTRIC construction is one whose
distribution is functionally equivalent to that
of one or more of its constituents, i.e., a word
or a group of words, which serves as a
definable CENTRE or HEAD.
Usually noun phrases, verb phrases and
adjective phrases belong to endocentric types
because the constituent items are subordinate
to the Head.
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EXOCENTRIC construction is just the opposite
of endocentric construction. It refers to a group
of syntactically related words where none of the
words is functionally equivalent to the group as a
whole, that is, there is no definable “Centre” or
“Head” inside the group.
Exocentric construction usually includes basic
sentence, prepositional phrase, predicate (verb +
object) construction, and connective (be +
complement) construction.
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The boy smiled. (Neither constituent can
substitute for the sentence structure as a
whole.)
He hid behind the door. (Neither
constituent can function as an adverbial.)
He kicked the ball. (Neither constituent
stands for the verb-object sequence.)
John seemed angry. (After division, the
connective construction no longer exists.)
Coordination and Subordination
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Endocentric constructions fall into two main
types, depending on the relation between
constituents:
Coordination
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COORDINATION is a common syntactic
pattern in English and other languages formed
by grouping together two or more categories
of the same type with the help of a
conjunction such as and, but and or . This
phenomenon is known as coordination.
These two or more words or phrases or clauses
have equivalent syntactic status, each of the
separate constituents can stand for the original
construction functionally.
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Coordination of NPs:
[NP the lady] or [NP the tiger]
Coordination of VPs:
[VP go to the library] and [VP read a book ]
Coordination of PPs:
[PP down the stairs] and [PP out the door ]
Coordination of APs:
[AP quite expensive] and [AP very beautiful]
Coordination of Ss:
[S John loves Mary] and [S Mary loves John too].
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Such a structure is usually considered to be
doubly headed, since both of the conjoined
elements function as heads of the larger unit.
That is, in a coordinate sentence, two (or
more) S constituents occur as daughters and
co-heads of a higher S.
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One property coordination reveals is that
there is no limit on the number of
coordinated categories that can appear prior
to the conjunction.
Thus, we can form structures such as
[NP A man, a woman, a boy, a cat and a dog]
got into the car
in which the subject NP contains four
smaller NPs prior to the underlined
conjunction and one after it.
Subordination
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SUBORDINATION refers to the process
or result of linking linguistic units so that
they have different syntactic status, one
being dependent upon the other, and
usually a constituent of the other.
Thus the subordinate constituents are
words which modify the Head, as shown in
the underlined parts of the constructions.
Consequently, they can be called modifiers.
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two dogs
Head
(My brother) can drink (wine).
Head
Swimming in the lake (is fun).
Head
(The pepper was) hot beyond endurance.
Head
Subordinate clauses
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Clauses can be used as subordinate constituents,
the three basic types of subordinate clauses are:
complement clauses
adjunct (or adverbial) clauses
relative clauses
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John believes [that the airplane was invented
by an Irishman]. (complement clause)
Elizabeth opened her presents [before John
finished his dinner]. (adverbial clause)
The woman [that I love] is moving to the south.
(relative clause)
Syntactic Function
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The SYNTACTIC FUNCTION shows the
relationship between a linguistic form and
other parts of the linguistic pattern in which
it is used.
Names of functions are expressed in terms
of subjects, objects, predicators, modifiers,
complements, etc.
Apart from the notion of “modifiers” being
already given in the previous section, the
following are some of the basic functional
terms in syntax.
Subject
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In some languages, SUBJECT refers to one
of the nouns in the nominative case.
The typical example can be found in Latin,
where subject is always in nominative case,
such as pater and filius in the following
examples.
pater filium amat (the father loves the son)
patrem filius amat (the son loves the father)
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In English, the subject of a sentence is often
said to be the doer of the action, while the
object is the person is the person or thing
acted upon by the doer.
This definition seems to work for these
sentences:
Mary slapped John .
A dog bit John.
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but is clearly wrong in the following
examples:
John was bitten by a dog.
John underwent major heart surgery.
In order to account for the case of
subject in passive voice, we have two
other terms “grammatical subject” (John)
and “logical subject” (a dog).
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Another traditional definition of the subject
is “what the sentence is about” (i.e., topic).
Again, this seems to work for many
sentences, such as
Bill is a very crafty fellow.
but fails in others, such as
(Jack is pretty reliable, but) Bill I don’t trust.
As for Bill, I wouldn’t take his promises very
seriously.
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All three sentences seem to be “about”
Bill ; thus we could say that Bill is the
topic of all three sentences.
These sentences make it clear that the
topic is not always the grammatical
subject.
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It seems that we cannot reliably identify the
subject of a sentence with either the agent or
the topic. Rather, we use grammatical
criteria to develop a workable definition.
What characteristics do subjects have? Note
the following properties of subjects in
English:
Word order
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Subject ordinarily precedes the verb in the
statement:
Sally collects stamps.
*Collects Sally stamps.
Pro-forms
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The first and third person pronouns in
English appear in a special form when the
pronoun is a subject, which is not used
when the pronoun occurs in other positions:
He loves me.
I love him.
We threw stones at them.
They threw stones at us.
Agreement with the verb
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In the simple present tense, an -s is added to
the verb when a third person subject is
singular.
However, the number and person of the
object or any other element in the sentence
have no effect at all on the form of the verb:
She angers him.
They anger him.
She angers them.
Content questions
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If the subject is replaced by a question word
(who or what), the rest of the sentence
remains unchanged, as in
John stole/would steal Mrs. Thatcher’s
picture from the British Council.
Who stole/would steal Mrs. Thatcher’s
picture from the British council?
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But when any other element of the sentence
is replaced by a question word, an auxiliary
verb must appear before the subject.
If the basic sentence does not contain an
auxiliary verb, we must insert did or do(es)
immediately after the question word, as in:
What would John steal, if he had the chance?
What did John steal from the British Council?
Where did John steal Mrs. Thatcher’s
picture from?
Tag question
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A TAG QUESTION is used to seek
confirmation of a statement. It always
contains a pronoun which refers back to the
subject, and never to any other element in
the sentence.
John loves Mary, doesn’t he?
Mary loves John, doesn’t she?
*John loves Mary, doesn’t she?
Predicate
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PREDICATE refers to a major constituent
of sentence structure in a binary analysis in
which all obligatory constituents other than
the subject were considered together.
It usually expresses actions, processes, and
states that refer to the subject.
The boy is running.
Peter broke the glass.
Jane must be mad!
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As predicate includes constituents such as
verb, object, complement, etc., people find it
illogical to use a class-term, namely, the verb,
in grammatical analysis of a functional
nature.
The word PREDICATOR is suggested for
verb or verbs included in a predicate.
Object
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OBJECT is also a term hard to define. Since,
traditionally, subject can be defined as the
doer of the action, object may refer to the
“receiver” or “goal” of an action, and it is
further classified into DIRECT OBJECT
and INDIRECT OBJECT.
Mother bought a doll.
Mother gave my sister a doll.
Ind. Obj. Dir. Obj.
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In some inflecting languages, object is
marked by case labels: the accusative case for
direct object, and the dative case for indirect
object.
In English, “object” is recognised by tracing
its relation to word order (after the verb and
preposition) and by inflections (of pronouns).
Mother gave a doll to my sister.
John kicked me.
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Modern linguists (e.g. Chomsky, Halliday)
suggest that object refers to such an item that
it can become subject in a passive
transformation.
John broke the glass. (The glass was broken
by John.)
Peter saw Jane. (Jane was seen by Peter.)
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Although there are nominal phrases in the
following, they are by no means objects
because they cannot be transformed into
passive voice.
He died last week.
The match lasted three hours.
He changed trains at Tianjin. (*Trains were
changed by him at Tianjin.)
The Relation between Classes and Functions
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Classes and functions determine each other,
but not in any one-to-one relation.
A class item can perform several functions.
For instance, a noun or a nominal phrase
can function as the subject, object, modifier
adverbial and complement of a sentence.
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The boys are playing football. (Subj. and Obj.)
the Summer Palace (Modifier)
He came here last month. (Adv.)
He changed trains at Tianjin. (Comp.)
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A function can also be fulfilled by several
classes.
For instance, the subject of a sentence can
be realized by a noun, pronoun, numeral,
infinitive, etc.
The dog is barking. (Nominal)
We will stay here. (Pronoun)
Only two-thirds of the population here are
workers. (Numeral)
To run fast can be dangerous. (Verbal)
Category
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The term CATEGORY refers to the defining
properties of these general units:
the categories of the noun, for example,
include number, gender, case and
countability;
and of the verb, for example, tense, aspect,
voice, etc.
Number
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NUMBER is a grammatical category used
for the analysis of word classes displaying
such contrasts as singular, dual, plural, etc.
In English, number is mainly observed in
nouns, and there are only two forms:
singular and plural, such as dog: dogs.
Number is also reflected in the inflections
of pronouns and verbs, such as He laughs:
They laugh, this man: these men.
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In other languages, for example, French, the
manifestation of number can also be found
in adjectives and articles.
le cheval royal (the royal horse)
les chevaux royaux (the royal horses)
Gender
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GENDER displays such contrasts as “masculine:
feminine: neuter”, “animate: inanimate”, etc. for
the analysis of word classes.
When word items refer to the sex of real-world
entities, we are talking about natural gender.
The opposite is grammatical gender.
Though there is a correlation between natural
gender and grammatical gender, the assignment
may seem quite arbitrary in many cases, for
instance, in Latin, ignis ‘fire’ is masculine, while
flamma ‘flame’ is feminine.
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English gender contrast can only be
observed in pronouns and a small number
of nouns, and, they are mainly of the
natural gender type.
he: she: it
prince: princess
author: authoress
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In French, gender is manifested also both in
adjectives and articles.
beau cadeau (fine gift)
belle maison (fine house)
Le cadeau est beau. (The gift is good.)
La maison est belle. (The house is beautiful.)
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Sometimes gender changes the lexical
meaning as well, for example, in French:
le poele (the stove)
la poele (the frying pan)
le pendule (the pendulum)
la pendule (the clock)
Case
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The case category is used in the analysis of
word classes to identify the syntactic
relationship between words in a sentence.
In Latin grammar, cases are based on
variations in the morphological forms of the
word, and are given the terms “accusative”,
“nominative”, “dative”, etc.
There are five cases in ancient Greek and
eight in Sanskrit. Finnish has as many as
fifteen formally distinct cases in nouns, each
with its own syntactic function.
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In English, case is a special form of the
noun which frequently corresponds to a
combination of preposition and noun, and it
is realised in three channels: (a) inflection,
(b) following a preposition, (c) word order,
as manifested in
teacher : teacher’s
with : to a man
John kicked Peter : Peter kicked John
Agreement
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AGREEMENT (or CONCORD) may be
defined as the requirement that the forms of
two or more words of specific word classes
that stand in specific syntactic relationship
with one another shall also, be characterized
by the same paradigmatically marked
category (or categories).
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This syntactic relationship may be
anaphoric, as when a pronoun agrees with
its antecedent,
Whose is this pen? --Oh, it’s the one I lost.
or it may involve a relation between a head
and its dependent, as when a verb agrees
with its subject and object:
Each person may have one coin.
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Agreement of number between nouns and
verbs:
This man runs.
The bird flies.
These men run.
These birds fly.
Phrase, Clause and Sentence
Sentence
Clause
Phrase
Word
Phrase
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PHRASE is a single element of structure
containing more than one word, and lacking
the subject-predicate structure typical of
clauses.
Traditionally, it is seen as part of a
structural hierarchy, positioned between
clause and word.
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Therefore, first, a phrase must be a group of
words which form a constituent.
Second, a phrase is lower on the grammatical
hierarchy than clauses.
More precisely, simple clauses may (and
usually do) contain phrases, but simple
phrases do not (in general) contain clauses.
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the three tallest girls (nominal phrase)
has been doing (verbal phrase)
extremely difficult (adjectival phrase)
to the door (prepositional phrase)
very fast (adverbial phrase)
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However, there is a tendency to make a
distinction between WORD GROUP and
PHRASE.
A word group is an extension of word of a
particular class by way of modification with its
main features of the class unchanged.
Thus we have nominal group, verbal group,
adverbial group, conjunction group and
preposition group (e.g. right behind, all along).
“To the door” is still accepted as a prepositional
phrase which consists of a preposition plus a
nominal group, and is, consequently, no longer a
preposition.
Clause
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A constituent with its own subject and
predicate, if it is included in a larger
sentence, is a CLAUSE.
Clause can also be classified into FINITE
and NON-FINITE clauses, the latter
including the traditional infinitive phrase,
participial phrase, and gerundial phrase.
Clause
Finite
Non-finite
Subject
Object
Infinitive
Adverbial
Relative
Participial
Appositional
Complement
Gerundial
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The best thing would be to leave early.
It’s great for a man to be free.
Having finished their task, they came to help
us.
Xiao Li being away, Xiao Wang had to do the
work.
Filled with shame, he left the house.
All our savings gone, we started looking for
jobs.
It’s no use crying over spilt milk.
Do you mind my opening the window?
Sentence
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Traditionally, SENTENCE is the minimum
part of language that expresses a complete
thought.
Bloomfield (1935) defined the sentence as
one “not included by virtue of any
grammatical construction in any larger
linguistic form”.
Sentences may be classified along the
intersecting dimensions of structure and
function.
The traditional approach presents a binary
division in terms of structure as follows:
simple
Sentence
complex
non-simple
compound
The functional approach gives a
framework like this:
Yes/no
Interrogative
Indicative
wh-
Declarative
Sentence
Jussive
Imperative
Optative
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Some linguists are now interested in the
communicative function of utterances and
label various sentences as “statement”,
“question”, “command”, “request”,
“confirmation”, etc.
Based on word classes, Bolinger (1969)
reports five basic sentence types.
Basic sentence types: Bolinger
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Mother fell. (Nominal + intransitive verbal)
Mother is young. (Nominal + copula +
complement)
Mother loves Dad. (Nominal + transitive verbal
+ nominal).
Mother fed Dad breakfast. (Nominal + transitive
verbal + nominal + nominal)
There is time. (There + existential + nominal)
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Quirk, et al (1972)
introduces seven
sentence types
according to the
grammatical functions
of the constituents
involved in a sentence:
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Type SVC
Mary is kind.
a nurse.
Type SVA Mary is here.
in the house.
Type SV
The child is laughing.
Type SVO Somebody caught the ball.
Type SVOC We have proved him wrong.
a fool.
Type SVOA I put the plate on the table.
Type SVOO She gives me expensive presents.
Recursiveness
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Though it mainly means that a phrasal
constituent can be embedded within (i.e., be
dominated by) another constituent having the
same category, RECURSIVENESS has
become an umbrella term, under which may
be brought together several important
linguistic phenomena such as coordination
and subordination, conjoining and
embedding, hypotactic and paratactic.
All these are means to extend sentences.
How long can be a sentence?
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Theoretically, there is no limit to the number of
embedding one relative clause into another
relative clause, so long as it does not become
an obstacle to successful communication. The
same holds true for nominal clauses and
adverbial clauses.
This is what we call recursiveness, for example:
I met a man who had a son whose wife sold
cookies that she had baked in her kitchen that
was fully equipped with electrical appliances
that were new.
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Recursiveness, together with openness, is
generally regarded as the core of creativity
of language.
John’s sister
John’s sister’s husband
John’s sister’s husband’s uncle
John’s sister’s husband’s uncle’s daughter,
etc.
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that house in Beijing
the garden of that house in Beijing
the tree in the garden of that house in Beijing
a bird on the tree in the garden of that house in
Beijing
Conjoining
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CONJOINING refers to the process where
one clause is coordinated or conjoined with
another.
The sentences made up in this way can be
understood as instances of coordination.
The conjunctions used in this case are and,
but, and or.
John bought a hat and his wife bought a
handbag.
Give me liberty or give me death.
Embedding
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Clauses are either independent or dependent.
When you embed a clause as a dependent
clause, you take one sentence and combine
it into another.
EMBEDDING refers to the means by which
one clause is included in the sentence (main
clause) in syntactic subordination.
The three basic types of subordinate clause
are complement, adjunct (or adverbial) and
relative clauses.
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I saw the man who had visited you last
year. (relative clause)
I don’t know whether Professor Li needs
this book. (complement clause)
If you listened to me, you wouldn't make
mistakes. (adverbial clause)
Beyond the sentence
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The development of modern linguistic
science has helped push the study of syntax
beyond the traditional sentence boundary.
More linguists are now exploring the
syntactic relation between sentences in a
paragraph or chapter or the whole text,
which leads to the emergence of TEXT
LINGUISTICS and DISCOURSE
ANALYSIS.
Sentential Connection
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The notions of hypotactic and paratactic
relations can also be applied to the study of
syntactic relations between sentences.
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Hypotactic (subordinate clauses):
You can phone the doctor if you like.
However, I very much doubt whether he is
in.
We live near the sea. So we enjoy a healthy
climate.
Paratactic (coordinate clauses):
In Guangzhou it is hot and humid during
the summer. In Beijing it is hot and dry.
He dictated the letter. She wrote it.
The door was open. He walked in.
Cohesion
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COHESION is a concept to do with
discourse or text rather than with syntax. It
refers to relations of meaning that exist
within the text, and defines it as a text.
Discoursal/textual cohesiveness can be
realized by employing various cohesive
devices: conjunction, ellipsis, lexical
collocation, lexical repetition, reference,
substitution, etc.
(a) He couldn’t open the door. It was locked
tight. (Reference)
(b) “Why don’t you use your own recorder?”
“I don't have one.” (Substitution)
(c) “Did she get there at six?”
“No, (she got there) earlier (than six).”
(Ellipsis)
(d) I wanted to help him. Unfortunately it was
too late. (Logical connection)
(e) “Shall we invite ZhangHui?”
“No. 1 can’t stand the man.” (Lexical
collocation)