Chapter 4 Syntax
(From Word to Text)
Jabberwocky
……
By Lewis Carroll
’ Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
Many of the words in the poem are playful
nonce words of Carroll's own invention,
without intended explicit meaning.
 When Alice has finished reading the poem
she gives her impressions:

“It seems very pretty,” she (Alice) said when she
had finished it, “but it’s RATHER hard to
understand !” (You see she didn’t like to
confess, even to herself, that she couldn’t make
it out at all.)
“Somehow it seems to fill my head with ideas—
only I don’t exactly know what they are!
However, SOMEBODY killed SOMETHING:
that’s clear, at any rate—”
—Lewis Carroll from Through the LookingGlass and What Alice Found There, 1872
Introduction

In Lewis Carroll’s poem Jabberwocky,
there are many non English words. But by
reading the poem carefully, we soon find
that we can actually classify each word on
the basis of its grammatical ending and its
position in the sentence.

For example, borogoves is a noun because
it ends in –s, and because it follows
the ,and slithy is an adjective because it
comes between the and the plural noun
toves.
What is Syntax?

The use of language ,like games, has its
own rules. To play the games well, you
should know the rules. Words, word
groups and phrases, and clauses cannot
occur at random, they have to follow
certain rules of ordering.

Such grammatical endings as –ing and –s
are studied in morphology as inflectional
morphemes and the range of position in
which a particular word occurs is studied
in syntax, another subfield of linguistics.

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.

In short, syntax is a branch of linguistics
that studies the rules that govern the
formation of sentences, which is concerned
with the rules how words are put together
in certain patterns to form different clauses

句法研究的是语言中不同成分组合句子的支
配规则，或者句子结构中各要素间的相互关
系。

In this chapter, we are concerned with
composition of sentences by introducing
some of the most categories of words in
English as well as some simple rules that
govern the organization of these categories
into larger units.
Categories

Category in some
approaches refers to classes
and functions in its narrow
sense ,e.g., noun, verb,
subject, predicate, noun
phrase, verb phrase, etc.

More specifically, it refers to the defining
properties of these general units: the
categories of the noun, include number,
gender, case and countability; and of the
verb, for example, tense, aspect, voice, etc.

范畴这一术语在一些学派中指的是狭义的词
类和词语的功能，例如名词、动词、主语、
谓语、名词短语、动词短语等。更具体一些，
范畴指的是这些一般性单位的甄别性特点：
例如名词的范畴包括数、性、格和可数性；
而动词范畴则含有时、体、式等。

In our textbook, categories refers to a
group of linguistic items which fulfill the
same or similar functions in a particular
language such as a sentence, a noun phrase
or a verb. In this section, we are talking
about the categories in the second sense

范畴指的是某一种特定的语言中执行相同或
相近功能的一组语言项目，如句子、名词短
语、或者动词。
Word-level categories
The most central categories to the syntactic
study are the word-level categories.
 对于句法研究最核心的范畴是词层次范畴。
 Here word level categories are divided into
two kinds: major lexical categories and
minor lexical categories. Major lexical
categories play a very important role in the
sentence formation.


They differ from minor lexical categories in that
they are often assumed to be the heads around
which phrases are built. Major lexical categories
are Noun, Verb, Adjective, and proposition.
While determiners (Det), Degree words (Deg),
Qualifier (Qual), Auxiliary (Aux) and
Conjunction (con) belong to the Minor lexical
categories


Word categories are not so clear-cut as shown
above because some words belong to more than
one category.
For example, in English, the word book have two
word forms-the singular book and the plural
books. Together they constitute the category of
NUMBER indicated by the inflectional endings -s.
Similarly, the present work and the past worked of
the word work form the category of TENSE
indicated by the suffix –ed. Apart from number
and tense, they are CASE and GENDER for nouns
and adjectives, and ASPECT,VOICE and MOOD
for verbs.

These grammatical categories are essential
part of the inflectional languages such as
French and Russian.
The term GRAMMATICAL
CATEGORY ,in more general use, refers to
certain properties of word classes often
represented by inflectional endings.
 To determine a word’s category, three
criteria are usually employed, namely,
meaning, inflection and distribution.

MEANING

Word categories often bear some
relationship with its meaning. For example,
nouns typically denote entities such as
human beings and objects like Sally and
Jennet, mobile and helicopter. Verbs,
characteristically designate action,
sensations and states like run, hate and
exist.

To determine a word’s category by its
meaning only is often not reliable.
Sometimes we resort to other criteria .The
second criterion to determine a word’s
category is inflection. Words of different
categories take different inflections.




Nouns take the plural affix –s
Verbs take the past tense affix –ed and progressive
affix –ing .
Adjectives take comparative affix –er and
superlative affix –est
Although inflection is very helpful in determining
a word’s category, it doesn’t suffice. Some words
don't take inflections
DISTRIBUTION

The last and more reliable criterion of
determining a word’s category is its
distribution. That is what type of elements
can co-occur with a certain word.

For example, noun can typically appear
with a determiner like the girl and a card,
verbs with an auxiliary such as should stay
and will go ,and adjectives with a degree
word such as very cool and want
desperately.

Thus, a word’s distributional factors
together with in formation about its
meaning and inflectional capacities help
identify its syntactic category.
PHRASE

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 structural hierarchy, positioned
between clause and word.

短语(PHRASE)是含有一个以上词语的单一
结构要素，它没有分句所特有的主谓结构
(subject-predicate structure)。从传统上讲，
短语被视为层级结构的一部分，位居分句和
词语之间。
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.

因此，短语应该是构成一个成分(constituent)
的一组短语。
 其次，短语在语法层级上要低于分句。
 更精确地说，简单分句可以（通常的确）包含
短语，但是简单短语（一般）不包含分句。


So we can see that in a sentence words are
grouped together .These groups are
grammatical units .Big units contain some
smaller ones and the smaller ones may in
turn contain some still smaller ones. These
are units ,subunits and sub-subunits, each
corresponding to certain syntactical
categories. These units can be ordered in
terms of five hierarchical：/,haiE‘ra:kikl/
ranks:
1.sentences(each consists
of one or more clauses) →
 2.clauses(each consists of
one or more phrases) →
 3.phrases(each consists of
one or more words) →
 4.words(each consists of
one or more morphemes)
→
 5.morphemes


Syntactic units that are built around a
certain word category are called PHRASE,
the category of which is determined by the
word category around which the phrase is
built. If the word around which the phrase
is built is a noun, then the phrase is a noun
phrase and so on.
围绕某一次范畴构成的句法单位称为短语。
它的范畴由该短语构成时所围绕的词的范
畴决定。短语构成所围绕的词是名词，那
么该短语就是名词短语依此类推。

In English syntactic analysis, the most
commonly recognized and discussed
phrasal categories are noun phrase (NP),
verb phrase (VP) ,adjective phrase (AP)
and propositional phrase (PP).
Phrase Categories and Their
Structures

Phrases can consist of just one word ,but
more often they contain other elements as
well. Whether formed of one or more than
one word, they consist of two levels,
phrase level and word level.

NP

N
VP
AP
V
A
PP ←phrase level
P
←word level

Phrases that are formed of more than one
word usually contain the following
elements: head, specifier and complement.
The word which a phrase is formed is
termed head. The words on the left side of
the heads are said to function as specifiers.
The words on the right side of the heads
are complements.

由多个单词构成的短语通常包括以下成分：
中心语、标志语和补语。短语围绕所构成的
词叫做中心语。出现在中心语左边的词叫做
标志语，出现在中心语右边的词叫做补语。



By a closer observation of PS rules, one may find
that many of the PS rules have a similar
formulation.
For example,NPs always contains an N,PPs a P
and VPs a V,ec.In another word,XPs always
contain an X,which stand for either N,or V,or A
or P.
The X is the head of the XP,and other categories
in the XP are there either for the specification (限
定) or complmentation（补充） of the head X.
Phrase Structure Rule

As we have seen, a certain word can only
concur with certain other words. There
must be certain grammatical mechanism
that ensures the appropriate positions that
specifiers, heads, and complements occupy
in phrase structure.
如我们所见，某一特定的词只能与另一类
特定的词组一起出现。这其中必定存在着
某种语法机制确保标志语、中心语和补语
在短语结构中处于恰当位置的。

Such special type of grammatical
mechanism that regulates the arrangement
of elements that make up a phrase is called
phrase structure rule （PS rule）.
这种规定构成一个短语的成分的排列的特殊
语法机制类型被称作是短语规则。
consists of ”
“branches into




NP →
VP →
AP →
PP →
(Det)
(Qual)
(Deg)
(Deg)
N
V
A
P
Other complement
options are
available
(PP)
(NP)
(PP)
(NP)
…
…
…
…
The parentheses
the element in
them is optional
箭头可以读作“由…构成”或者“扩
展为…”，括号表明其中的成分可以
省略，每个规则后面的三点表示可以
选择加入其他的补语。
XP
Specifier




NP →
VP →
AP →
PP →
(Det)
(Qual)
(Deg)
(Deg)
X
Head
N
V
A
P
Complement
(PP)
(NP)
(PP)
(NP)
…
…
…
…
The XP rule: XP→ (specifier) X (complement)






[NP the lady] or [NP the tiger]
[VP go to the library] and [VP read a book]
[PP down the stairs] or [PP out the door]
[AP quite expensive] and [AP very beautiful]
[S John loves Mary] and [S Mary loves John too].
[NP A man, a woman, a boy, a cat and a dog] got
into the car.

The common syntactic patterns are formed
by grouping together two or more
categories of the same type with the help
of conjunction such as “and”, “or” and
“but”.

在英语中，有些结构是借助于象and或者是or
这样的连词将同种类型的两个或者是多个成
分连接起来而构成的。
Coordination Rule




Such phrases are called coordinate structures and this
phenomenon is called coordination.
这样的短语称为并列结构，这种现象叫做并列。
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.
人们通常认为这种结构有两个中心成分，因为两个连接成分都能
作为更大的单位。这就是说，在一个并列句中，两个或者更多的
句子成分是更高一级句子的姊妹和并列的中心成分。
The four important properties of
Coordination (P46)
 Coordination occupies its own place in the
creativity of language: i.e.recursiveness.

Recursiveness

Recursiveness means that a phrasal
constituent can be embedded within
(i.e.,be dominated by) another constituent
having the same category –a means to
extend a sentence.

一种短语成分可以被镶嵌即被支配与另一个
属于同一范畴的成分中。

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.
Coordination and Subordination

Endocentric constructions fall into two
main types, depending in the relation
between constituents: Coordination and
Subordination.

根据组成成分之间的关系，向心结构可分为
并列与从属。
Subordination

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.

从属指的是将语言单位连接以使各单位具备不同句
法地位的过程和结果，其中一个单位依赖于另一个
单位，且通常是该单位的一个成分。
Endocentric and Exocentric
Constructions
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.
 向心结构的分布和它的一个或多个成分的分
布在功能上相同，该成分是一个词或一组词，
是整个结构的核心或中心。


Usually noun phrases, verb phrases and
adjective phrases belong to endocentric
types because the constituent items are
subordinate to the Head.

名词短语、动词短语和形容词通常都属于向
心结构，因为各成分从属于短语中心词。
These two oldest stone bridges

Head

Will be leaving

Head

very
late
Head
Exocentric

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.

离心结构恰好与向心结构相反。它指的是一
组句法上相关的词中没有一个词在功能上与
整个词相同，也就是说，词组内没有“核心”
或“中心词”。离心结构通常包括：基本句，
介词短语，谓语结构，和连词结构。


The boy smiled.
(Neither constituent can substitute for the sentence structure
as a whole.)
两个成分均不能替代整个句子结构
He hid behind the door .
(Neither constituent can function as the adverbial.)
两个成分均不能单独起到状语的功能
He kicked the ball.
(Neither constituent stands for the verb-object sequence .)
两个成分均不能单独表示动-宾排列。

John seemed angry.
(After division, the connective construction no longer exists.)
分开后，连词结构不复存在

Phrase Elements
Specifiers
The syntactic category of the speicfier differs
depending on the category of the head.
 If the heads are Ns, the specifiers are
determiners.
 If the heads are Vs, the specifiers are
qualifiers .
 If the heads are As and Ps, then the specifiers
are degree words.

Specifier
Heads
 determiner
N
the tree this book
no water
 Qualifier
V
always fail
never surrender seldom drink
 Degree
A/P less interesting
 Almost in


标志语的句法范畴因中心语范畴的不同而不
同。限定语是作为名词的标志语，修饰语则
是典型地作为动词的标志语，而程度词则作
为形容词（有时是介词）的标志词。
Complements
Complements are themselves phrases and
provide information about entities and
locations whose existence is implied by the
meaning of its head. They are attached to
the right of the head.6(P,48 4-1)
 补语自身就是短语，它们为中心词意义中所
必须包含的实体与位置提供了信息。在英语
中，它们依附在中心词的右边。

Subcategorization



The information about a word’s complement is
included in the head and termed
SUBCATEGORIZATION.
有关词的信息是包括在中心语之中的，被称为次范
畴化。
We may revise our earlier XP rule as follows,
using an asterisk after the complement to
indicate that one or more of these elements is
permitted.

A certain lexical item requires a certain type of
complements. Therefore, we can revise our
earlier XP rule, using an asterisk after the
complement to indicate that one or more of these
elements is permitted.

一个特定的词汇项要求一种特定的补语。因此我们
可以对我们先前的XP规则进行修订，用补语后面星
号表示多个这样的成分是被允许的。
XPR1
The XP Rule (revised)
 XP→ (Specifier) X (Complement﹡)

Complementizers
Miss Hebert believes that she will win.
 The underlined part in the above sentence
is the complement of the verb believe. It is
a sentence itself but not an independent
one since it is introduced by a conjunction
function as a phrase.

Miss Hebert believes that she will win.
 Words like that which introduces the
sentence complement are termed
complementizers (Cs).
 The sentence she will win introduced by
complementizer that is a complement
clause.
 The whole underlined part in the sentence
is called a complement phrase (CP)

Modifiers

Modifiers which specifies optionally
expressible properties of heads.

修饰语详细地说明了中心语具有选择性的可
表达特征。

The most common modifiers of Ns are
adjective phrases and those of verbs are
adverb phrases and prepositional phrases
which describe manner and time
XPR2
To make modifiers fit into the phrase
structure ,the original XP rule can be
expanded as follows so that it allows the
various options.
 The Expanded XP Rule
 XP→ (Specifier)(Mod) X
(Complement﹡)(Mod)

Sentences (The S Rule)

Many linguists nowadays believe that
sentences, like other phrase ,also have
their heads. They take an abstract category
inflection (dubbed “infl”) as their
heads ,which indicates the sentence's tense
and agreement.

Like other phrases, Infl takes an NP (the
subject) as its specifier and VP category as
its complement.
Transformation

We will explain some language
phenomena such as yes-no question, whquestion and passive voice, which involve
a syntactic movement and discuss the
changes that must be made to
accommodate them.
Auxiliary movement/Do insertion
 Deep structure and surface structure
 Wh-movement
 Move and constraints on transformations

Auxiliary movement/Do insertion
To form yes-no question
 An overt infl form-auxiliary movement
 An invert form-Do insertion

Auxiliary movement/Do insertion

According to the XP rule, the auxiliary is
the head of a sentence which takes a VP
category as its complement on the right
and an NP, the subject ,as its specifier on
the left.



The yes-no question structures being considered are built
in two steps. In the first step, the usual XP rule is used to
form a structure in which the auxiliary occupies its
normal position in Infl, between the subject and VP.
The second step is in forming yes-no question requires a
transformation, a special type of the rule that an element
from one position to another.
A transformation known as inversion moves from the
auxiliary from the infl position to the left of the subject.

The X-bar Theory is extended to sentences
by introducing a category Complimentizer
(COMP) into the PS rules to indicate the
subordinators of any dependent clauses,
such a that,which,who,whether,what ,if for,
etc., or the inverted auxiliaries in yes-no
questions.

X-bar理论还可以适用于句子，这是要在PS
规则中引入标补语（COMP）这个范畴，以
表示that、which 、who 、whether、 what、
if 、for 等从句中的主从连词，或者yes-no
问句中倒装的助动词
And a yes-no question, such as “Are you the
new teacher”
 像“Are you the new teacher”这样的yes-no
问句可以表示为：

SCOMP
S
are you t the new teacher




And to generate a sentence, we always start
with its deep structures, and then transform
it into its corresponding surface structure.
Deep structures is generated by phrase
structure rules (PS rules)
while surface structures are derived from
their deep structures by transformational rules
(T-rules).
The whole process of the dynamic study can be
represented by the following diagram:


Deep structures


PS rules
T-rules
Surface structures
Deep structure
D1:The turkey itself is ready to eat something.
(the turkey is the logical subject of to eat)



D2 :The turkey as a dish is ready for people to eat.
(the turkey is the logical object of to eat)
Surface structure
The turkey is ready to eat.

The distinction between deep and surface
structures enables us to explain the
difference between the following pair of
sentences, which appear to have the same
surface structures syntactically:
 John is eager to please.
 John is easy to please.


We simply point out that they have two
distinct deep structures and the syntactic
difference is obliterated( removed 除去) by
the application of certain T-rules. Their deep
structures may be roughly presented as:
S


NP

S

VP
V
Someone please John is
A
easy
S


NP

N

John
VP
V
A
is eager
S
John please someone
The two sentences have similar surface
structure. But in spite this similarity the
grammar of the two is quite different. “John”
has a different logical relationship to
“please” in the two sentences.
 In the first sentence, though it is not
apparent from the surface order, “John”
functions as the direct object of the verb
“to please” ;the sentence means :it is easy
for someone to please John.

Whereas in the second sentence “John”
functions as the subject of the verb “to
please”;the sentence means :John is eager
that he pleases someone.
 It cannot be paraphrased as “﹡It is eager to
please John”or “﹡Pleasing John is eager”.

Deep structure specifies these relationships:
 a.(Someone pleases John) is easy;
 b.John is eager (John pleases someone)

John expects mother to bring a present.
 John persuades mother to bring a present.
 这两个句子的表层结构（surface structure）
是相同的，因为都包含名词+动词+名词+带
有标记 to 的动词不定式+冠词+名词。

但是两个句子的深层结构不同，
 因为句（1）可转换成为：
 (3) John expected that mother would bring a
present.
 但句（2）却不能转换为：
 （4）﹡John persuaded that mother would
bring a present.

两个句子的不同可以用下图表示：
 （1a）John expected mother to bring a present.

（2a）John persuaded mother to bring a present.

从上图可以看出，区别于动词expected 和
persuaded 与它们后面成分的关系的性质。
（2 a）中persuaded 仅仅和mother发生了关
系。
A sentence with structural ambiguity can be
also explained by giving two different deep
structures .
 For example, the ambiguous sentence
 John likes dogs more than Mary.
 has two distinct deep structure sentences:
 John like dogs more than Mary likes dogs.
 John like dogs more than John likes Mary.


When the affirmative sentence “Jack sold
his linguistics textbooks to Jill after the final
examination” is transformed into “When did
Jack sell his linguistics textbooks to Jill?”
three transformational rules are applied.
They are Do-insertion, Subject-aux
Inversion and wh-movement.
(武汉大学2002年考研试题)

Now the XP Rule is really a general rule
that can cover all phrase structure rules.
Likewise ,a general rule is given to cover all
the transformation rules. It is referred to
as Move α, in which α(alpha) stands for
any element that can be moved form one
position to another in the deep structure.
XP规则的确成了能够涵盖所有短语结构规则的
总规则。同样地，也提出了一条能够覆盖所有
转换规则的总规则，称为α移动，希腊字母α
代表任何在深层结构中可移动的位置的成分。


After the application of Move α , certain
constituents are moved from their original
positions. In order to present in the surface
structure the semantic information carried by
these original positions in the deep
structures ,an “empty” category “Trace”,
symbolized by t ,is introduced to indicate the
“trace” left behind in the place any constituent
formally occupied before the movement. This is
already illustrated by the example “Are you the
new teacher” in the previous discussion.
应用了α移动之后，有些成分就从原来的位置移走。
为了在表层结构中体现这些成分在深层结构中本来
的位置的语义信息，就引入了一个“空”范畴，叫
做“移迹”，写作t，表示任何成分从原来占据的位
置移走后的留下的“痕迹”。
Transformational-generative
grammar

In the 1950s,the school of linguistic thought known
as transformational-generative grammar received
wide acclaim through the works of Noam Chomsky.
Chomsky postulated a syntactic base of language
(called deep structure), which consists of a series of
phrase-structure rewrite rules, i.e., a series of
(possibly universal) rules that generate the
underlying phrase-structure of a sentence, and a
series of rules (called transformations) that act upon
the phrase-structure to form complex sentences.

The end result of transformationalgenerative grammar is a surface structure
that, after the addition of words and
pronunciations, is identical to an actual
sentence of a language .

All the languages have the same deep
structure, but they differ from each other in
surface structure because of the application
of different rules for transformations ,
pronunciation, and word insertion.

Another important distinction made in TG
grammar is the difference between language
competence (the subconscious control of a
linguistic system) and language
performance (the speaker’s actual use of
language).

Although the first work done on TG
grammar was syntactic, later studies have
applied in the theory, to the phonological
and semantic components of language.