Question: What is syntax? Discuss the major syntactic process with diagram.
Syntax
Syntax refers to the arrangement of words and phrases to create well-formed sentences in a language. In linguistics, syntax is the set of rules, principles, and processes that govern the structure of sentences in a language, usually including word order. The term syntax is also used to refer to the study of such principles and processes.
Etymological definition
The word syntax is derived from the Greek word ‘syntaxis’ which means ‘ordering together’ or ‘together arranging’. So, it is the study of sentence building in which words and phrases are arranged together in order to make larger units. In brief, syntax is the study of sentence structure.
According to the Canadian linguist Henry Allan Gleason, syntax is constituted of a principle of construction and arrangement made of the derivational process and inflection of words into a variation of bigger construction.
Syntactic processes
The syntactic processes are generally concerned with the sentences and the constituents of sentences. Some of major syntactic processes are discussed here.
More Notes of Linguistics
Discontinuous constituents
Discontinuous constituents are such constituents of sentence which are separated from each by one or more intervening constituent but considered syntactically continuous and unitary.
For example, ‘He pulled the thief down’. Here in this sentence the phrasal verb ‘pulled down’ is a discontinuous constituent separated by ‘the thief’:
Recursion
Recursion is repeated application or the repeated sequential use of a linguistic element or grammatical structure. It has also been described more simply as the ability to place one component inside another component of the same kind. A linguistic element or grammatical structure that can be used repeatedly in a sequence is said to be recursive.
For example:
The old man
The little old man
The little poor old man
The clever little poor old man, etc.
The above-mentioned example being the realization of the NP NP + (S) rule can be diagramed as follows:
Conjoining or co-ordination
Conjoining occurs when some elements are added to other similar elements by using by using coordinators. For example:
The scene of the movie was in Dhaka.
The scene of the play was in Dhaka.
He is poor.
He is honest.
The above four sentences can be turned into two new sentences by the rule of conjoining.
The scene of the movie and the play was in Dhaka city.
He is poor but honest.
The sentence “The scene of the movie and the play was in Dhaka city” can be diagramed as follows:
Embedding
Embedding happens when the subordinate clause is added or embedded with the superordinate or main clause.
The man who sat next to you is my elder brother.
This sentence can be diagramed in the following way:
