YANBU UNIVERSITY COLLEGE
Women’s Campus
Constituency & The Analysis of Sentence Structure
Prepared by: Ms. Sahar Deknash
AL-YUC
Second Semester-221
1
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• As we defined it before, syntax is the study of
sentence structure.
• So, what is a structure? Look at this sentence:
• The student wrote his syntax assignment.
• One way to describe this sentence is by saying that
is consists of string of words. These strings of
words are units called Constituents, and these
constituents are grouped into larger constituents
until we get a sentence.
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What is a Constituents?
• It is a group of words that functions together as a
unit. These units are represented within [ ] or
tree diagram.
• Constituency is the most important notion in the
syntactic theory. The constituents are related to
each other in a hierarchical structure.
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Characteristics of a Constituent
• A constituent is a group of words that are treated as one unit.
Constituents are embedded one inside another to form larger and
larger constituents to form a sentence at the end.
• Constituents are called phrases. A phrase has one or more words
and functions as one unit in a larger constituent called a sentence.
• Every phrase should have a head and it may have other optional
elements.
• A sentence should have two main phrases: Noun Phrase and Verb
phrase.
• A sentence may have other optional phrases as : Adjective phrase,
prepositional phrase and adverb phrase.
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Constituency & Phrase structure rules
The tools that we use to show the hierarchical structure
of constituents of a sentence are:
1. The Phrase Structure Rules
2. The Tree Diagram
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Phrase Structure Rules
• Rules for determining the structure of phrases.
• Generate a lot of sentences from a small number of rules.
• The structure of a phrase will consist of one or more
constituents in a certain order.
• What does a NP consist of?
– Noun phrases have a N
NP
N
- Noun phrases have a determiner and a noun
- NP
Det N
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Phrase Structure Rules
• If we look at phrases, some patterns emerge:
Det
N
• the instructor = NP
Det N
• a friend = NP
Det
N
• some homework = NP
Det
N
• two classes = NP
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Phrase Structure Rules
• some more patterns:
V Det N
• call the instructor= VP
V
Det N
• meet a friend = VP
V Det N
• do some homework = VP
V Det N
• skip two classes = VP
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PSR
• and yet more patterns:
Prep Det
N
• with the instructor= PP
Prep Det N
• from a friend = PP
Prep Det
N
• with some homework = PP
Prep Det N
• after two classes = PP
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Lexical Rules
• We need lexical rules to specify which words can
be used when we rewrite constituents such as N.
– ProperN {Mary, George}
– N {girl, boy, dog}
– Art
the, a ,an
– Pro
he, she, they
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The main phrase structure rules
1. S  NP VP
2. NP  {Det N, Pro, PN}
3. VP  V (NP) (PP) (Adv)
4. PP  P NP
5. AP  A (PP)
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THE END
Q&A
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Slide 12