Syntax

1. Term 1 Week 9 Syntax

2. Definition • The study of how words are combined into sentences • Concerns itself with grammar and not meaning e.g. “colourless green ideas sleep furiously” is a grammatical construction but is not meaningful

3. Sentences and Structures • The main aim of this unit is to introduce you to some of the most significant patterns of English grammar. • Knowing about these patterns and understanding how they function will help you to see how meanings are made in texts and can provide a basis for interpreting what the texts mean to you.

4. Sentences and Structures Grammar is only one level of linguistic analysis, and interpreting the use of grammar in the text is not the same as interpreting the text. To do this, we need to consider other patterns of language too, such as vocabulary, phonology and discourse. But grammar is a central resource for making and communicating meaning, and the more you understand how it works the more systematically you can work with texts that interest you.

5. Grammar and Patterns • The following sentence does not make sense and is not grammatical. How are you going to put the words in an order that make sense overall? weekend going am to I next disco the

6. Grammar and Patterns • Sentences are made up of individual groups which form patterns with other groups of words. • The patterns can be fixed; that is, they must follow a certain order. • Patterns can follow different orders, though if they do, the meaning is normally changed.

7. Grammar and Patterns • For example, ‘to the disco’ is a fixed pattern; but ‘I am going’ can also be formed as ‘Am I going?’, which turns a statement into a question. • ‘I am going to the disco next weekend’ can also be written as ‘Next weekend I am going to the disco’, which, by putting the reference to the time at the beginning, stresses ‘next weekend’.

8. Nouns and Patterns • Nouns are one of the most prominent forms in a language. For example: • ‘London’ is a noun and can stand quite meaningfully on its own on a signpost, or in answer to a question, or on a train or air ticket etc. • ‘Apples’ is a noun and can stand quite independently on a shop ticket or shop sign.

9. Nouns and Patterns • Nouns are not just single words; they can form patterns with other words to make noun phrases. • Like nouns, noun phrases can also stand on their own meaningfully.

10. Nouns and Patterns For example: • titles to book or story such as ‘The Man with a Scar’ • menu in a phrase such as ‘Home-made celery soup’ • shop front name such as ‘The Body Shop’ • on a shopping list such as ‘oven-ready chips’

11. Nouns and Patterns If we were to put the following nouns in a sentence, would you be able to make sense of the sentence? the tall man the black dog What other words would you need to add to the sentence in order for it to make sense?

12. Subject, Object and Verb • Take the verbs out of the following sentences. What are the results? Do the sentences make sense without the verbs? The girl kissed the boy. They lost the match 4-1. My friend’s daughter has broken another vase. Paris is the capital of France.

13. Subject, Object and Verb Commentary on ‘Off Course’ (I) There are no main verbs in ‘Off Course’. One effect of this omission of main verbs is that no clear relation seems to exist between the objects referred to in the noun phrases. Objects either seem not to act upon one another or have no particular ‘action’ of their own.

14. Subject, Object and Verb • Verbs create links. The links are usually between a grammatical ‘subject’ and a grammatical ‘object’. • In this example the subject ‘tall man’ is linked by a main verb ‘walked’ to the object ‘dog’. The tall man walked the dog. • If the main verb is taken away, then the relationship between the noun ‘man’ and the noun ‘dog’ is no longer clear.

15. Subject, Object and Verb Commentary on ‘Off Course’ (II) Verbs generally work to connect things, and so in this case the main effect is that of normal relations being suspended and disconnected. The poet has suspended the normal rules of grammar to create a world in which everything is turned upside down and suspended. In one sense this is appropriate to the conditions of outer space in which there is no gravity, but it may also suggest a space journey in which actions and events have become disturbingly abnormal.

16. Subject, Object and Verb • The absence of main verbs in a text also removes any sense of time. • Verbs are normally marked when something is taking place or took place. Thus, ‘walked’ tells you that the action is completed and is in the past tense. • If there are no verbs in a text then there is no tense, and if there is no tense, it is difficult to work out within what time scale things are happening.

17. Subject, Object and Verb Commentary on ‘Off Course’ (III) The poem ‘Off Course’ has as a result a certain timeless quality, as if normal temporal relations are suspended too. However, it is not true to say there are no verbs in the poem. There are verbs in the poem. For example, there is another distinct pattern in the text formed from the following groups of words: ‘the floating song’, ‘the growing beard’, ‘the shining rendezvous’ and so on.

18. Subject, Object and Verb • The words ending in ‘-ing’ are all what are termed present participles. the world turns the turning world • The differences between the two verbal items above underline that present participles function to create a sense of continuing, if suspended, action.

19. Subject, Object and Verb Commentary on ‘Off Course’ (IV) In the poem, present participles convey a feeling of things continuing endlessly or, at least, without any clear end. It may not be inappropriate therefore, that the final line of the poem contains the group of words ‘the floating song’, which, with an absence of punctuation, possibly reinforces the idea of an endlessly drifting journey without a conclusion.