Modern Linguistics and Syntax:
The term syntax is derived from the Ancient Greek word syntax, which means "organizing together." The syntax is defined as
"the study of the rules and procedures by which sentences in a specific language are organized together."
Grammar is split into two parts: morphology and syntax.
Syntactic Operations:
The grammar's heart is its syntax. It is vital to comprehend the patterns underlying the sentences, as well as the methods and means of connecting the elements and the rules for changing one kind of structure into another. We will go through some of the key syntactic processes that result in diverse syntactic patterns.
Conjoining:
Other words for conjoining include 'co-ordination' and 'conjunction.' Certain structural aspects of two or more sentences are comparable in this procedure. The sentences are joined by the coordinators. 'This technique is only conceivable when there is a comparable constituency link' between the segments so combined and the phrases.
Syntactic Structures provide the following example:
- The scene – of the film – took place in Karachi
- The play's setting was set in Karachi.
To create this new phrase, the conjoining process aims to "get the correct connection of constituency."
The scene of the movie and the play was in Karachi
Embedding:
When one phrase is incorporated inside another sentence, this is referred to as embedding. The component sentence is embedded into the matrix (or basic) sentence during the embedding transformation process.
S1 [S2] S1
Instead of combining the two equal-status sequences, one phrase becomes part of the bigger sentence.
(1) Breaking news
His pals were astonished
(2) (that) he was married
Sentence (2) is an embedded sentence since it is embedded in the sentence (1). Consider the following example:
S1 | The man was arrested. |
S2 | The man murdered three people. |
This graphic demonstrates that S2 is subservient to S1 and so integrated in it. There are two kinds of embedding:
Nesting (a) and self-embedding (b)
The nested segment is completely encased inside a matrix in a nesting arrangement. Let us look at another case.
The girl who purchased the cosmetics donated money that she had borrowed.
Example:
In the above example, who purchased the cosmetics are nested. Which was borrowed is not nested since there is no component of the matrix to the right of it. A self-embedded structure is completely encompassed inside another structure of the same sort (Fowler).
Recursion:
The same rules may be applied 'indefinitely many times inside a single derivation' using this approach. As previously stated, transformationalists think that a language user has an endless amount of sentences at his disposal.
This is mostly due to his ability to utilize the recursive process, which involves repeatedly using the same language construct. This allows us to repeatedly add any ingredient (for example, an adjective).
The elderly guy, the tiny old man, the poor little old man, the bright poor little old man, and so on. 'To demonstrate to anybody who does not believe in the infinite number of sentences in a language, we simply ask him to construct the greatest phrase he can and then add another adjective or relative clause to it' (Palmer).
The above example is an implementation of the NP NP + (S) rule.
The previous example, 'the elderly guy,' may also be explained by a series of rewritten rules.
N + NP + De + Adj + N
N + Adj + Adj + Adj + Adj + Adj + Adj + Ad
N + Adj + Adj + Adj + Adj + Adj + Adj + Adj + Adj + Ad
N + Adj + Adj + Adj + Adj + Adj + Adj + Adj + Adj + Adj + Adj + Ad
This form of statement may be stretched indefinitely, and hence rules can be replicated indefinitely. According to Roger Fowler,
"we don't need a new rule to prolong the phrase each time; only one sophisticated sentence building rule may be employed again and over."
Recursiveness is a feature of complicated sentences, and transformational grammar with recursive rules provides a significant economic advantage over other choices.
Discontinuous Constituent:
Traditionally, structural linguists dealt with cutting, categorizing, and labeling language pieces, which is the process of IC analysis. Among the issues they faced when using this strategy was the inability to break some sequences into clean pieces since the parts that belong together are separated by some other element/s.
As a result, there is a break in the sequence. These constituents are referred to as 'discontinuous constituents.
The sequence, the world's best orator, is a basic example. He sequences the world's best naturally goes with. The second IC is formed by Orator, but it interferes with the former, causing 'discontinuity.'
The most common sorts of discontinuous formations are those produced by phrasal verbs. We may utilize phrasal verbs like put down, push away, brush off, makeup, look up, and so on in sentences to show how they generate discontinuous structures.
He dismissed her reasoning. He wiped the dust off his coat. He was forced away by the crowd.
The general quickly put an end to the insurrection. She made up the whole tale.
Adverbs often follow the object in such formations, despite the fact that they belong with the verb. The 'discontinuity' process is fairly clear in interrogative sentences:
Is she on her way?
He brushed her explanation off He brushed the dust off his coat. The mob pushed him away.
The general soon put the uprising down. She made the whole story up.
In such constructions, the adverbs often follow the object, though they belong with the verb. In interrogative sentences the ‘discontinuity’ process is quite obvious:
Is she coming?
This can be shown by using ‘boxes’.