Introduction to English Syntax
Level 1 Course
Ron Kuzar
Department of English Language and Literature
University of Haifa
Chapter 2
Sentences: From Lexicon to Syntax
Predicate: The Life Giving
Component of the Sentence
• Consider the sentence: John bought a car.
• If we only had the phrase “John”, would we know
anything about the structure of this sentence?
NO!
• How about “a car”? NO!
• How about “bought”?
YES!
• Buy is the predicate.
– We know that the sentence will have the form:
A buy B, where A and B are NPs.
– Further we know that
A=a person, B=(typically) a thing
Terminological Note
• Predicate
• Also:
– Head (of the sentence)
– Nucleus (of the sentence)
• Sometimes the term predicate (or predicate
phrase) is used in a syntactic sense, meaning
the verb and its following phrases (roughly
=VP). This is NOT how we are using it here.
• We are using it here in a lexical–semantic
sense (to be explained below).
Valency
• The information that we know about the
predicate is its valency.
• Valency includes:
• The number of NPs participating in the
sentence.
These participants are called arguments.
• Their relation to the predicate (subject or
object, without or with a preposition).
• Additional semantic information about the
arguments (person, animate, inanimate, etc.)
Terminological Note:
• Valency
• Also:
– Valence
– Argument structure
• Argument
• Also:
– Participant
– Satellite
Word Class of Predicate
• Predicates may be V, N, A, or P.
• At this point, we only discuss verbs.
• Verbs are predicates par excellence, i.e. they
are always predicates, not anything else.
• Only lexical verbs are predicates.
Grammatical and Lexical Verbs
• Grammatical verbs are:
– Auxiliaries and modals: be, have, may, would, etc.
• Lexical verbs are all the others.
• Lexical verbs have valency,
Grammatical verbs do not.
Grammar and Lexicon
• More generally, the grammar contains
predictable information (rules), while the
lexicon contains idiosyncratic information.
• The behavior of auxiliaries is rule-governed.
It belongs to the grammar.
• The valency of a predicate is idiosyncratic
information. It belongs to the lexicon.
• This is why we called the two types of verbs
lexical and grammatical.
Sentence Production
• Sentence production may be viewed as:
– selecting a predicate from the lexicon.
E.g. rely.
This verb comes with its valency:
NP[person] rely PP[on NP].
Or simply: A rely on B.
– selecting the right number and types of arguments
from the lexicon according to this valency.
E.g. A=my father, B=his experience).
– Inserting them around the predicate in their
appropriate syntactic positions.
E.g. My father relies on his experience.
Number of Arguments
• A verb may have 0–3 arguments:
• One argument: cough, emerge.
– E.g. Mary coughed.
– A new problem has emerged.
• Two arguments: eat, look.
– John is eating a banana.
– Mary will look at the mountains.
• Three arguments: send (2 valencies of the same V).
– The secretary sent the letter to Linda.
– The secretary sent Linda the letter.
Terminological Note
• Predicates with 0/1/2/3 arguments are called
Zero-/one-/two-/three-place predicates.
• One-place predicate
• Also:
– intransitive predicate
• Two place predicate
• Also:
– (Mono-) transitive predicate
• Three-place predicate
• Also:
– Ditransitive predicate
Zero-Place Predicates
• Predicates with zero arguments are special.
– They describe environmental conditions.
(they are sometimes called “weather predicates”.)
– They have a subject which is not an argument.
• Consider the sentence It is raining.
• The sentence has the subject it.
• Note, however, that you cannot ask:
*Who/what is raining.
• There is no real entity behind this it.
• It is a dummy subject, called also expletive.
Terminological Note
• Expletive (subject)
• Also:
– Dummy subject
– Pleonastic subject
Expletive
• An expletive is not determined by the valency
of the verb, it does not come from the lexicon.
• English grammar requires that every sentence
should have a subject.
• Since the lexicon does not provide an
argument in the subject position, grammar
itself supplies it.
• The sentence It is raining has an expletive
subject, but it has zero arguments.
Two Kinds of It
• Not every it at the beginning of a sentence
is an expletive.
– It tastes very good!
– What tastes very good?
– The soup.
• Here it is a regular pronoun, representing
a real entity.
• This is why we CAN ask about its identity.
Case
• Have a look at the following sentences:
– She likes us.
– They hate him.
– We like her.
– He hates them.
• We have two sets of forms here:
he, she, we, they = Pronouns in Nominative Case.
him, her, us, them = Pronouns in Accusative Case.
• In the subject position we have Nom.
• In the object position we have Acc.
• Also after a preposition we have Acc.:
to me, at her, in us, on him, etc.
Terminological Note
• Nominative case
• Also:
– Subjective case
• Accusative case
• Also:
– Objective case
Pronouns without case
• It and you do not have distinct Nominative
and Accusative forms.
• To make a distinction, change you into a
different person, or change it into they.
– You found
me.
–I
found you.
– He found
me.
–I
found him.
-----------------------------------------------------– It annoys
me.
–I
love
it.
– They annoy me.
–I
love them.
Nom.
Acc.
Nom.
Acc.
Phrases without case
• In English, pronouns have Nom. and Acc.
case, but lexical nouns and NPs do not.
• We might say: NPs have abstract case.
• If you are not sure about an NP’s abstract
case, change it into a pronoun.
– I found the books / them
– The books and them are in the Acc. case
Subject, Direct Object,
Oblique Object, Indirect Object
•
•
•
•
Subject
(Direct) Object
Oblique (Object)
Indirect Object
= Nom. NP argument.
= Acc. NP argument.
= Acc. NP argument in PP.
= Acc. NP argument; first in
a double object construction
• Abreviations:
Subject
Object
Oblique
=
=
=
Subj.
Obj.
Obl.
Examples
subj.
– Max found
– Mary gave
Indirect obj.
subj.
– Jack relies
– Sally gave
direct obj.
John
a book
direct obj.
Linda
a book.
oblique obj.
on Laura
to Jeff
Terminological Note
• Oblique (object)
• Also:
– Indirect object (VERY CONFUSING)
– Prepositional object
• Indirect Object
– is sometimes considered a first direct object in a
double (direct) object construction.
Adjuncts
• A sentence may contain other phrases that
are not part of the valency of the predicate.
• These phrases are called adjuncts.
• Adjuncts may be NPs, PPs, or AdvPs.
– John has read the book seven times (NP).
– John read the book in his room (PP).
– Yesterday (AdvP) John read the book.
• The subject, objects, and adjuncts are called
the Parts of the Sentence.
Terminological Note
• The term Part of speech (=word class)
indicates categorial affiliation.
• The term Parts of the Sentence indicates
functional insertion.
• A phrase of type X is allowed to be
inserted into syntactic position Y, e.g.:
– An NP may serve as subj.
– An NP or PP may serve as obj.
etc.
Terminological Note
• Adjunct
• Also:
– Adverbial (phrase)
• Note that the term Adverbial is confusing
since it looks like it is associated with the
adverb, but this is not necessarily so.
Summary: Sentence Structure
• Every sentence contains:
– A predicate.
– Arguments according to the predicate’s valency.
– Any number of adjuncts.
A Sample Question
• In the following sentence, identify the valency of the
verb (e.g. A drink B, A talk to B).
• Identify the arguments in the sentence by the terms
subject, direct object, oblique object, indirect object.
• Identify adjuncts.
– At 17:00, my boss phoned the aforementioned client from
the car, for more information about the deal.
• Answer: Valency:
A phone B
Subject:
My boss
Direct object: the aforementioned client
Adjuncts:
at 17:00, from the car,
for more information about the deal.
Homework
• Same instructions as in the sample question:
– Accordingly, the minister has referred the case to
the court for further processing.
– It has been snowing for three hours.
– After this incident, Kate playfully aimed the rifle at
the crewmen.
– The boss yelled at the secretary for no reason.
– The boss asked the secretary for the list of
applicants.
– Farmers sprayed the chemicals on their fields at
their own discretion on the specified day.