Casual Conversation 1
Casual Conversation: Syntactic Analysis
Linguistics
Miranda Lavallee
Salt Lake Community College
Casual Conversation 2
Abstract
The purpose of this syntactic analysis was to be able to point out syntactic categories within
casual conversation or natural speech. I will find at least five sentence structures that have
examples of each category, including the meanings the words express and the type of structure in
which each sentence will occur in. Syntactic Category is a set of words and phrases in a language
which share specific types of common characteristics, such as nouns, verbs, determiners and so
on. In the most natural conversations you will come across many of these categories used in
many ways. According to O’Grady: The major categories are: All phrasal syntactic categories,
for example; NP (noun phase), VP (verb phrase), PP (prepositional phrase) and Word-level
syntactic categories or Heads of phrasal syntactic categories; like nouns, adjectives, prepositions
and verbs. The Minor categories are: Categories that do not project to a phrasal level such as yesno question markers (2010). To be able to communicate properly these syntactic categories must
be followed or you will have unacceptable sentences.
Casual Conversation 3
Casual Conversation: Syntactic Analysis
Introduction
In casual conversation we don’t stop to think about what syntactic categories we are using. We
use our native language so naturally without even thinking about how it is structured or how we
form our sentences. We speak so quickly and naturally that is seems like a part of us. I am going
to take some a closer look at a native English speaker in the most natural setting I could find.
Syntax is the study of the rules for the formation of grammatical sentences in a language, the
way in which linguistic elements, as words are put together to form constituents, as phrases or
clauses. (O’Grady 2010) Within Syntax there are many topics some of them are: Syntactical
categories, lexical categories, non-lexical categories, Inflectional affix, Distribution, Phrase
structure, Heads, Deep structure and Surface structure.
Methods
To capture some casual conversation I set up a recording devise and started to ask my volunteer
a few questions. I started with some set questions I had written down before we started recording
but after about ten minutes or so the conversation steered itself into a more natural state and I no
longer needed my written questions. I recorded my volunteer for a little over thirty minutes but I
am only going to analyze the last twelve minutes of my recording.
Casual Conversation 4
I feel that by using only the last twelve minutes of my recording I will have the most
natural/casual speech and it will make my research all the more accurate.
Results
Within the five utterances that I chose from the recording I found that all of the three major
categories were present (the phrasal syntactic categories).
An example:
In the first question: I went to Mexico a few times

NP (noun phase)

VP (verb phrase)

PP (prepositional phrase)
See attached work
Conclusion
In conclusion I found that within all natural speech with one’s native language you will have
resent all Syntactic Categories. Without proper use of these categories as a native speaker to ones
one language you would not be able to understand what is being said clearly.
Casual Conversation 5
References
Farmer, Jess. Personal Interview. April 14, 2013.
O’Grady, William, Archibald, John, Aronoff, Mark, Rees-Miller, Janie. (2010). Contemporary
Linguistics an Introduction Sixth Edition. New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s.