Syntax: it is the study of how words are combined to form a sentence,or the study of sentence structure,it has nothing to do with meaning
Syntactic structures : there are 2 types ,the parts of speech(verb,noun…),and the phrase structure grammars(phrases)
Recursiveness : is when we understand and produces long sentences in grammar without purpose.
ConsituentsOr Unit : each component in the sentence is called a constituent Or Unit in syntax.
Comstituents can be either Obligatory or Optional : The head is obligatory,and the Complements are optional.
Constituent can be either a grammatical category such as (noun phrase,verb phrase…etc) ,Or grammatical function such as (verb,noun,adv…etc)
Adjunts : can be either Adj ,Adv , prepositional phrase(on the table).
Complements : can be direct.o , Indirect.o .
Specifiers : the,a,this,an,my,your,every,very…
Argument and Predicate :Arguments are the participants involved in the predication .
Generative grammar : is an approach to the study of syntax generated by Chomsky,It is also mathematical which means the sentences in language are compared to mathematical operations which are endless.
Rules in language are EXPLICIT .
Explicit rules of language can allowall Well-formed sentences and Block ill-formed sentences.
The rules are Finite ,butthe structures allowed or blocked are Infinite.
We can’t judge whether a sentence is well-formed or not from a language ,because it is not our native language ,so we should be a native speaker to judge.
Syntactic categories : are Lexical and phrasal categories.
Lexical category : is a type of syntactic units that correspond to traditional parts of speech which consists of (verb,noun,adj,adv,prep)
Phrasal categories : not to be confused with lexical categories because this latter containts phrases(noun phrase,verbphrase,adv phrase...)
Functional categories : elements that have grammatical meanings ,not like lexical categories which have rather descriptive meanings.(determiners,auxiliaries,complementizers,conjuctions)
Phrase structure rule : generate and build sentences ,and solve ambiguity,and break down sentences into their constituents parts. Ex : S=> NP.VP
Transformational rule : is a syntactic development of Phrase structure rules,and it is the shift from thedeep structureto the surface structure, and it derives a new structureby transforming or inserting some elements,such as in passivization,the object bcomessubject,and the Aux is added …
Syntactic structurehave :
Deep structure : is an abstract representation of a sentence,it is the basic structure of sentences, Ex : john loves marry=>(NP)(V)(NP). Deep structures are generated by Phrase structure rules.
Surface structure rule : is derived from deep structure which mainly deals with meaning,but surface structure ,deals with sentences,it is forms of sentences resulted from modification ,transformations.
Active forms are considered as Deep structure, passive forms are surface structure.
Verbs of having and being do not passivize=> I have a cake.
Transformational grammar : a device that generates sentences within a certain language ,otherwise it generate only the well formed sentences which technically are in the brain of a native speaker.
Phrase structure rule(grammar)(PSG)+ Transformation grammar(TG)=Transformational Generative grammar(TGG).
X-bar theory highlights =>
Sentence is the maximal.projof Aux
Adjunct and complements are optional.
Cross categorical generalization=> head is obligatory ,complements and spec are optional.
Phrase categories(phrases) are the maximal proj of lexical categories(heads).
Phrase structure components are (heads,complements,adjuncts)
Xbarexercices: john believed that cathy knew that marry helped George .
He studies linguictics at the university.
Marry will tell john that bill wonders if the book is useful