CONSTITUENT STRUCTURE

2.1 HEADS, MODIFIERS AND

ARRANGEMENTS OF WORDS

To make sense of a clause or sentence in

written language or of a series of clauses in
spontaneous speech, we have to pick out each
head and the words that modify it. Heads and
modifiers tend to occur next to each other.
 For instance, in English, nouns can be modified by
various types of words and phrases – adjectives,
prepositional phrases and relative clauses, not to
mention words such as a, the, this and some.
Examples:
a. the house
b. the splendid house
c. the house on the hilltop
d. the house which they built out of reinforced concrete
 In noun phrases in some other languages, the
order of head and modifiers follows a stricter pattern,
with all modifiers either preceding or following the
head.
In certain declarative clauses the modifiers of
prepositions follow their head preposition.
Example:
a. Jeeves shimmered into the room.
shows the typical pattern, with the preposition into
followed by the room.
b. *Into Jeeves shimmered the room.
c. Into the room shimmered Jeeves.
shows the correct structure.
 In some other English clauses, the noun-phrase
modifier of a preposition can be separated from its
head preposition.
e.g.
a. Which room did Jeeves shimmer into?

is the typical way of questioning room in

b. Into which room did Jeeves shimmer

Not only noun, verb can also be modified by a

number of items,
2.2 TESTS FOR PHRASES
The arrangement of words into phrases and
phrases into clauses may seem self-evident in
explanation before. In fact, it is not always clear
how the words in a given phrase are arranged or
how the phrases are arranged in a given clause.
Fortunately, tests have been developed to help
analysts.
2.2.1 TRANSPOSITION
Many sequences of words can be moved
together into different slots in a clause; this is
evidence that the words form a phrase. E.g.
 Jeeves shimmered into the room.

 Into the room shimmered Jeeves.

the words into the room being moved, or

transposed, to the front of the clause.
 Transposition is one of the tests that reveal
whether a given sequence of words make up a phrase
or are just words that happen to come one after the
other.
Consider the active clause in (a) and the passive
clause in (b).
a. The pupils in this maths class gave cakes to
Margaret every Friday.
b. Cakes were given to Margaret every Friday by
the pupils in this maths class.
 The phrase the pupils in this maths class is at the
beginning of the clause in (a) and refers to the people
doing the giving. Meanwhile, the same sequence is at
the end of the clause and is the complement of the
preposition by. The differences between (a) and (b)
consist of more than just a group of words being moved
from one position to another. Example (a) contains
gave, while (b) contains the words were and given.
2.2.2 SUBSTITUTION
The essential idea behind this test is that a
single word can substitute for a number of words
hanging together as a phrase.
Examples:
a. Barbara handed the intriguing results of the
latest examination to Alan on Tuesday.
b. Barbara handed them to Alan on Tuesday.
 Them in (b) substitutes for the intriguing results of
the latest examination in(a). The substitution applies
to sequences of words with adjectives, such as those in:
 This parcel is very heavy, Becomes,

 This parcel is astonishingly and frighteningly heavy. or

 This parcel is heavy.

 There are another type of substitution is possible,
using the specialised substitution word so. Examples:
Adi : “This large parcel is very heavy.”
Budi : “No it’s not.”
Coki : “It is so.”
The test of so-substitution is straightforward or
direct in that the sequence very heavy is removed and
so is dropped into the slot.
 But, there are another type of so-substitution is
rather indirect. Examples:
 This large parcel is very heavy and so is this small
packet.

There is no doubt that so ‘stands for’ very heavy.

The reason for calling this substitution ‘indirect’ is that
so has not simply been dropped into the slot occupied
by very heavy but has been moved to the front of the
clause.
 Substitution can be applied to sequences
introduced by prepositions. Example
a. Vera is crocheting in the lounge.
b. Vera is crocheting there.
c. Grandma is coming to Mr Chalky’s school tomorrow.
d. Grandma is coming here tomorrow.
2.2.3 ELLIPSIS
Consider the examples in (a, b, c)
a. The terrier attacked the burglar. The terrier
savaged the burglar’s ankles.
b. The terrier attacked the burglar and the terrier
savaged the burglar’s ankles.
c. The terrier attacked the burglar and [ ]
savaged the burglar’s ankles.
 Example (a) contains two separate clauses. In (b),
the clauses are conjoined by and; this gives a single
sentence consisting of two clauses, each beginning with
the terrier.
Example (c) is produced by deleting the second
occurrence of the terrier. The square brackets in (c)
mark the site of the missing words, which are said to
have been ellipted, and be replaced by using word
he/she which substituted ‘terrier’.
2.3 PHRASES: WORDS AND SLOTS
In everyday usage, the term ‘phrase’ is
applied only to sequences of more than one word.
Let see the example:
a. Barbara handed the results to Alan on
Tuesday.
b. Barbara handed them to Alan on Tuesday.
 Examples (a) and (b) both contain the phrases (in
the everyday sense) to Alan and on Tuesday. In
contrast, Barbara in (a) and them in (b) do not
constitute everyday phrases because they each consist
of just one word. What is meant by ‘phrase’ is a slot in
which one or more words can occur, or indeed in which
other phrases can occur
2.4 COORDINATION
Words of the same type can be coordinated,
that is, joined by special words such as and and
or. Phrases of the same type can be coordinated,
and clauses of the same type.
2.5 CONCLUDING COMMENTS
There are five general comments in this chapter.
 first is simply that the tests of transposition and
substitution apply inside clauses, although they
are often said to apply inside sentences.
 The second comment concerns the different types
of phrase. The labels ‘noun phrase’, ‘prepositional
phrase’ and ‘adjective phrase’ are in general use.
 The third comment concerns the fact that phrases can
contain other phrases.
 The fourth comment has to do with the title of this
chapter, ‘Constituent Structure’. We have talked of
words constituting phrases, and we can also talk of
phrases constituting clauses.
 The final comment is that very little of the
arrangement of words into phrases, phrases into
bigger phrases, phrases into clauses and so on is
signalled in either speech or writing.