Syntax
In linguistics, syntax (/ˈsɪntæks/[1][2]) is the set of rules, principles, and processes that
govern the structure of sentences (sentence
structure) in a given language, usually including word order. The term syntax is also used to refer
to the study of such principles and processes.[3] The goal of many syntacticians is to discover
the syntactic rules common to
all languages.
Etymology
The word syntax comes
from Ancient Greek: σύνταξις "coordination",
which consists of σύν syn, "together", and τάξις táxis,
"an ordering".
Sequencing of subject, verb, and object
One basic
description of a language's syntax is the sequence in which the subject (S), verb (V), and object (O) usually appear in sentences. Over 85% of
languages usually place the subject first, either in the sequence SVO or the
sequence SOV. The other
possible sequences are VSO, VOS, OVS, and OSV, the last
three of which are rare. In most generative theories of syntax, these surface
differences arise from a more complex clausal phrase structure, and each order
may be compatible with multiple derivations.
Generative grammar
The hypothesis
of generative grammar is that language is a structure of the human mind. The
goal of generative grammar is to make a complete model of this inner language
(known as i-language).
This model could be used to describe all human language and to predict whether
any given utterance in a hypothetical language would sound correct to a speaker of that language (versus constructions
which no human language would use). This approach to language was pioneered
by Noam Chomsky. Most
generative theories (although not all of them) assume that syntax is based upon
the constituent structure of sentences. Generative grammars are among the
theories that focus primarily on the form of a sentence, rather than its
communicative function.
Among the many
generative theories of linguistics, the Chomskyan theories are:
·
Transformational
grammar (TG) (Original theory of generative syntax laid out
by Chomsky in Syntactic Structures in 1957)[9]
Dependency grammar
Dependency grammar is an
approach to sentence structure where syntactic units are arranged according to
the dependency relation, as opposed to the constituency relation of phrase structure
grammars. Dependencies are directed links between words. The
(finite) verb is seen as the root of all clause structure and all the other
words in the clause are either directly or indirectly dependent on this root.
Some prominent dependency-based theories of syntax are:
Functionalist grammars
Functionalist
theories, although focused upon form, are driven by explanation based upon the
function of a sentence (i.e., its communicative function). Some typical
functionalist theories include:
No comments:
Post a Comment