• or it may involve a relation between a head and its dependent, as when a verb agrees with its subject:
– Each person may have one coin.
• Agreement of number between nouns and verbs:
Chapter 4 From word to text
Sandy
Contents
• Syntactic function 句法功能
• Category 范畴
• Phrase, clause, sentence
• Recursiveness 递归性
Syntactic function
• The syntactic function shows the relationship Subjects, form and other between a linguisticobjects, predicators, parts of modifiers, which it is the linguistic pattern incomplements…used.
• Mother bought a doll.
• Direct object / indirect object
– Mother gave my sister a doll.
Gibst du mir deine Telefonnummer?
• Class and functions • A class item can perform several functions.
Predicate 谓语
• What is a predicate?
– 除主语之外的其他所有成分，谓语通常表达主语的动作，过程和 状态。
• The boy is running. • Peter broke the glass. • Jane must be mad!
Object 宾语
• Receiver or goal of an action
Number
• In English, number is mainly observed in nouns, and there are only two forms: singular and plural, such as dog: dogs. • Number is also reflected in the inflections of pronouns and verbs, such as He laughs: They laugh, this man: these men.
Case
• In English, case is a special form of the noun which frequently corresponds to a combination of preposition and noun, and it is realized in three channels:
• How long can a sentence be?
Conjoining 连接
• Conjoining: coordination. • Conjunctions: and, but, and or.
– John bought a hat and his wife bought a handbag. – Give me liberty or give me death.
• All these are means to extend sentences.
• Ex.
– I met a man who had a son whose wife sold cookies that she had baked in her kitchen that was fully equipped with electrical appliances that were new … – The sky is blue, the tree is green, the flower is colored, and the water is clean…
Characteristics
• Word order
– 主语位于动词前: I like dancing.
• Pro-forms
– I love him. He love her.
• Agreement with verb
– She slaps him.
• Content questions 实意问句
ioptative
请求句
Basic sentence types: Quirk
• SVC
•
• • •
• •
Mary is kind. a nurse. SVA Mary is here. in the house. SV The child is laughing. SVO Somebody caught the ball. SVOC We have proved him wrong. a fool. SVOA I put the plate on the table. SVOO She gives me expensive presents.
Recursiveness 递归性
• Recursiveness also includes several phenomena such as coordination and subordination, conjoining and embedding, hypotactic and paratactic.
– John stole a picture from the room. – Who stole a picture from the room?
• Tag questions 反意问句
– John loves Mary, doesn’t he? – The students like me, doesn’t they?
Sentence
Structure 结构
simple sentence
non-simple compound
complex
Sentence
Function功 能 indicative 陈述句
interrogative 疑 问句 declarative 陈述句
jussive
Yes/no Wh-
sentence
Gender
• English gender contrast can only be observed in pronouns and a small number of nouns, and, they are mainly of the natural gender type.
– he: she: it – prince: princess – author: authoress
Agreement(concord)
• This syntactic relationship may be anaphoric, as when a pronoun agrees with its antecedent,
– Whose is this pen? --Oh, it’s the one I lost.
Clause
Finite
Subject Object
Non-finite
Infinitive
Adverbial
Relative
Participial
Appositional
Complement
Gerundial
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• The best thing would be to leave early. • It’s great for a man to be free. • Having finished their task, they came to help us. • John being away, Bill had to do the work. • Filled with shame, he left the house. • All our savings gone, we started looking for jobs. • It’s no use crying over spilt milk. • Do you mind my opening the window?
Recursiveness 递归性
• Recursiveness mainly means that a phrasal constituent can be embedded within another constituent having the same category.
– John’s sister – John’s sister’s husband – John’s sister’s husband’s uncle – John’s sister’s husband’s uncle’s son…
– This man runs. – These men run. The bird flies. These birds fly.
Phrase, clause, sentence
• • • • • • Phrase the three tallest girls (nominal phrase) has been doing (verbal phrase) extremely difficult(adjectival phrase) to the door (prepositional phrase) very fast (adverbial phrase)
• What are the basic functional terms in syntax?