Syntax: by Don L. F. Nilsen and Alleen Pace Nilsen

SYNTAX
by Don L. F. Nilsen
and Alleen Pace Nilsen
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Grammar is important!
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BASIC SENTENCES:
John swims well (Subject, Predicate, Adverb)
John saw Mary (Subject, Predicate, Direct Object)
Bush became President (Subject, Predicate, Subject-Complement)
John gave Mary a mink coat (Subject, Predicate, Indirect Object, Direct
Object)
The country elected Bush President (Subject, Predicate, Direct Object,

Object Complement)
(Fromkin, Rodman & Hyams [2011] 173-174)
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BASIC TRANSFORMATIONS
John gave Mary a mink coat.
Question:
Did John give Mary a mink coat?
Negative:
John didn’t give Mary a mink coat.
Negative Question:
Didn’t John give Mary a mink coat?
Information Question:
Who gave Mary a mink coat?
Tag Question:
John gave Mary a mink coat, didn’t he?
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Who’s on First?
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Passive:
Mary was given a mink coat by John. A mink coat was given to Mary by
John.
Imperative:
Give Mary a mink coat!
Negative Imperative:
Don’t give Mary a mink coat!
Contrastive Stress:
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SPECIAL PROBLEMS
Whiz Deletion: I met the girl (who was) doing the
dishes.
Extraposition: For John to be nice is very difficult  It

is very difficult for John to be nice.
Expletive: Thirty-seven students are in the room 

There are thirty-seven students in the room.
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EMBEDDING TRANSFORMATIONS 1
Relative Clause as Substantive:

He didn’t know who had the bicycle.
Relative Clause as Modifier:

Bill is the boy who has the bicycle.
(Fromkin, Rodman & Hyams [2011] 133)
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Present-Participle as Substantive:
The young girl’s watching the children surprised
everybody.
Present-Participle as Modifier:
I met the girl (who was) watching the children.
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Infinitive as Substantive:
For John to be nice is very hard.
Infinitive as Modifier:
John came (in order) to be nice.
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That-Clause as Substantive:
That John didn’t get angry was a miracle.
That-Clause as Modifier:
I was surprised that John didn’t get angry.
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PRONOMINALIZATION AND DELETION:
Possible only when information is recoverable from

linguistic context (antecedant) or social context:
John wanted Bill to buy the drinks.

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PARTS OF SPEECH
Lexical Categories:
Noun, Verb, Adjective, Adverb
Grammatical Categories
Preposition, Conjunction, Auxiliary, Expletive
Pro-Form
Relative Pronoun, Interrogative Pronoun, Personal
Pronoun, Indefinite Pronoun
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FUNCTIONS
A Noun can function as a Subject, Subject-
Complement, Direct-Object, Indirect-Object, Object-
Complement
A Verb can function as a Predicate
A Verbal can function as a Modifier
An Adjective and an Adverb can function as a Modifier
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TENDENCIES OF LEXICAL VS.
GRAMMATICAL CATEGORIES
Can refer to things in the real world
Can be stressed
Cannot be guessed in a Cloze Test
Can be inflected
Can enter into compounds

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DO SUPPORT
Look at the following English sentences:
John is doing his homework.

a. Is John doing his homework?
b. John isn’t doing his homework.
c. John is doing his homework.
Notice that in each case something is happening to the auxiliary

verb. In a, which is a question, the subject and auxiliary are
inverted. In b, which is a negative, “n’t” is attached to the
auxiliary. And in c, which is stressed, the auxiliary is
emphasized.
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English has two regular auxiliary verbs:
“have” (coming from perfect and passive constructions)
“be” (coming from progressive constructions)
When an English sentences has no auxiliary verb, we need to

provide one to form questions, negatives, or stressed auxiliary.
“Do” serves this function.

(Fromkin Rodman Hyams [2011] 145-148)
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From the sentence “Michael read the book.” we get:
“Did Michael read the book.”
“Michael didn’t read the book.”
“Michael did read the book.”

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SYNTACTIC AMBIGUITY
Smoking grass can be nauseating.
Dick finally decided on the boat.
The professor’s appointment was shocking.
The design has big squares and circles.

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That sheepdog is too hairy to eat.
Could this be the invisible man’s hair tonic?
The governor is a dirty street fighter.
I cannot recommend him too highly.
Terry loves his wife and so do I.
They said she would go yesterday.
No smoking section available
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TOPICALIZATION AND FOCUSING
TRANSFORMATIONS
Sentences consist of Subjects and Predicates.
The Subject is what we are talking about, and the Predicate is

what we say about it.
Therefore the Subject contains old information (so speakers will

have something to talk about), and the Predicate contains new
information (so speakers will be able to say something new).
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Any transformation that moves a
constituent up into the Subject or
Topic position is called a
“Topicalization Transformation.”
Any transformation that moves a

constituent down into the Predicate
position is called a “Focusing
Transformation.”
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The Passive Transformation is both a Topicalization
Transformation and a Focusing Transformation.
“John saw the girl” 

“The girl was seen by John
“The girl” has undergone a Topicalization Transformation, and

“John” has undergone a Focusing Transformation.
Note that this has not affected the truth value. “John saw the
girl” is true if and only if “The girl was seen by John.”
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Notice that in a normal sentence the strongest stress is
on the last word. This is because this is part of the
Predicate or new information, and is important
enough to be stressed.
Therefore, changing the word that is stressed in a

sentence is a focusing transformation.
John saw ten girls on bicycles.

John saw ten girls on bycles.
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RECURSION: THE INFINITY OF LANGUAGE
This is the house that Jack built.

This is the malt that lie in the house that Jack built.
STUDENTS: Using embedded relative clauses expand this
sentence. Notice that this expansion could go on until you run
out of breath, run out of daylight, or die.
The same is true of adding “very” as a modifier.

(Fromkin Rodman Hyams [2011] 135-142)
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Other examples of infinitely recursive sentences are “On the
tenth day of Christmas,” and “The Farmer in the Dell,” even
though these examples do end.
“The Farmer in the Dell” example ends with “The cheese stands
alone.”
This is the basis for Robert Cormier’s novel, I Am the Cheese,

which is about the Farmer family that is in the witness
protection program and has no friends.
As Kurt Vonnegut would say, “And so it goes…” (NOTE: No Final

Period)
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NONSENSE IS NOT NONSENSE
Grammars must be able to parse nonsense sentences.
Otherwise they must conclude that nonsense sentences don’t

have any meaning.
Since all nonsense sentences have the same meaning, zero, then
they all mean the same thing.
However, the following sentences do not mean the same thing:
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*I never saw a horse smoke a dozen oranges. (Martin Joos’s
example)
*Enormous crickets in pink socks danced at the prom.
*A verb crumpled the milk.
*Colorless green ideas sleep furiously. (Noam Chomsky’s example).

(Fromkin Rodman Hyams [2011] 49, 57, 302)
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Such sentences mean very different things and have
very different functions in the English language.
For example only “*Colorless green ideas sleep

furiously” is a grammatically well formed sentence,
although all of the sentences demonstrate
incompatabilities of certain words with other words
in the same sentence.
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The asterisk in front of *”Colorless green ideas sleep
furiously” means that the grammar doesn’t generate
this sentence. It should not occur in English.
Ironically, this “non-occuring” sentence is the

sentence most likely to occur in many linguistics
classrooms.
Furthermore, it’s very poetic.
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SEMANTIC VS. SYNTACTIC PARSING
You may have been told that a word gets its

meaning from its linguistic context.
This is both true and not true. Words out of

context tend to be very ambiguous.
What the linguistic context does is to

disambiguate a word. Social and cultural
context do the same thing.
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As an example, consider the word “ball.” The fact that
this word is written rather than spoken already
disallows another word that sounds the same “bawl”
meaning “to cry loudly.”
If we add a “the” (more linguistic context) we know the

word is a noun and not the verb “ball” meaning “to
roll paper or mud into a ball”
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As we add more linguistic context we make the word less and
less ambiguous, so that “the beach ball” is different from “the
basketball” or “the harvest ball” which is a dance.
In the case of “Colorless green ideas sleep furiously,” we’ve

disambiguated the meanings down to zero, because of feature
incompatibilities.
Something “colorless” can’t be “green.” Abstract things like

“ideas” can’t be any color, and can’t sleep. “Sleeping” is
usually not done “furiously,” etc.
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Like “Colorless green ideas sleep furiously,” “‘Twas
brillig, and the slithy toves / Did Gire and gimble in
the wabe” is also syntactically well formed but
semantically anomalous.
In the “Colorless green…” example the words are

incompatible; however in the “’Twas brillig”
example the content words don’t even exist.
The function words “it,” “was” “and” “did,” and “in”

exist, but the content words “brillig,” “slithy”
“toves,” “gyre,” “gimble” and “wabe” are not
English words, and therefore the issue of their
compatibility with other words is a mute point.
(Fromkin Rodman Hyams [2011] 57, 123, 187)
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TOM SWIFTIES
People who used to read the Tom Swift
novels invented a new type of joke:
“My name is Tom, he said Swiftly.”
This pattern is extended to:

“I’d like my egg boiled,” she whispered
softly.”
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“Get to the back of the boat!” he shouted sternly.
“Would you like another pancake?” she asked

flippantly.
“She works in the mines,” he roared ironically.

(Nilsen & Nilsen 176)
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The Whitest Kids Grammar
Lesson
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=el1GyY3ZezA
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Syntax: by Don L. F. Nilsen and Alleen Pace Nilsen

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SYNTAX

John swims well (Subject, Predicate, Adverb)

John saw Mary (Subject, Predicate, Direct Object)

Bush became President (Subject, Predicate, Subject-Complement)

The country elected Bush President (Subject, Predicate, Direct Object,

Extraposition: For John to be nice is very difficult  It

Expletive: Thirty-seven students are in the room 

Relative Clause as Substantive:

Relative Clause as Modifier:

Possible only when information is recoverable from

John wanted Bill to buy the drinks.

A Verb can function as a Predicate

A Verbal can function as a Modifier

An Adjective and an Adverb can function as a Modifier

Cannot be guessed in a Cloze Test

Can enter into compounds

John is doing his homework.

Notice that in each case something is happening to the auxiliary

“have” (coming from perfect and passive constructions)

“be” (coming from progressive constructions)

When an English sentences has no auxiliary verb, we need to

“Do” serves this function.

“Did Michael read the book.”

“Michael didn’t read the book.”

“Michael did read the book.”

Dick finally decided on the boat.

The professor’s appointment was shocking.

The design has big squares and circles.

Could this be the invisible man’s hair tonic?

The governor is a dirty street fighter.

I cannot recommend him too highly.

Terry loves his wife and so do I.

They said she would go yesterday.

No smoking section available

(Fromkin, Rodman & Hyams [2011] 149-151)

The Subject is what we are talking about, and the Predicate is

Therefore the Subject contains old information (so speakers will

Any transformation that moves a

“John saw the girl” 

“The girl” has undergone a Topicalization Transformation, and

Therefore, changing the word that is stressed in a

John saw ten girls on bicycles.

This is the house that Jack built.

The same is true of adding “very” as a modifier.

This is the basis for Robert Cormier’s novel, I Am the Cheese,

As Kurt Vonnegut would say, “And so it goes…” (NOTE: No Final

Otherwise they must conclude that nonsense sentences don’t

However, the following sentences do not mean the same thing:

*Enormous crickets in pink socks danced at the prom.

*A verb crumpled the milk.

*Colorless green ideas sleep furiously. (Noam Chomsky’s example).

For example only “*Colorless green ideas sleep

Ironically, this “non-occuring” sentence is the

Furthermore, it’s very poetic.

You may have been told that a word gets its

This is both true and not true. Words out of

What the linguistic context does is to

If we add a “the” (more linguistic context) we know the

In the case of “Colorless green ideas sleep furiously,” we’ve

Something “colorless” can’t be “green.” Abstract things like

In the “Colorless green…” example the words are

The function words “it,” “was” “and” “did,” and “in”

This pattern is extended to: