Syntax

For other uses, see Syntax (disambiguation). Not to be

confused with Sin tax. See also Syntaxis.
Sentence structure redirects here. For sentence types
in traditional grammar, see Sentence clause structure.

upon that of logic. (Indeed, large parts of the PortRoyal Logic were copied or adapted from the Grammaire
gnrale.[3] ) Syntactic categories were identied with logical ones, and all sentences were analyzed in terms of
Subject Copula Predicate. Initially, this view was
In linguistics, syntax is the set of rules, principles, and adopted even by the early comparative linguists such as
Franz Bopp.
processes that govern the structure of sentences in a given
language. The term syntax is also used to refer to the The central role of syntax within theoretical linguistics
study of such principles and processes.[1] The goal of became clear only in the 20th century, which could reamany syntacticians is to discover the syntactic rules com- sonably be called the century of syntactic theory as far
mon to all languages.
as linguistics is concerned. (For a detailed and critical
In mathematics, syntax refers to the rules governing the survey of the history of syntax in the last two centuries,
[4]
behavior of mathematical systems, such as formal lan- see the monumental work by Giorgio Gra (2001).)
guages used in logic. (See logical syntax.)

3 Modern theories
1

Etymology

There are a number of theoretical approaches to the

discipline of syntax. One school of thought, founded
From Ancient Greek: coordination from in the works of Derek Bickerton,[5] sees syntax as a
syn, together, and txis, an ordering.
branch of biology, since it conceives of syntax as the
study of linguistic knowledge as embodied in the human
mind. Other linguists (e.g., Gerald Gazdar) take a more
Platonistic view, since they regard syntax to be the study
2 Early history
of an abstract formal system.[6] Yet others (e.g., Joseph
Works on grammar were written long before modern syn- Greenberg) consider syntax a taxonomical device to reach
tax came about; the Adhyy of Pini (c. 4th century broad generalizations across languages.
BC) is often cited as an example of a premodern work
that approaches the sophistication of a modern syntactic
3.1 Generative grammar
theory.[2] In the West, the school of thought that came to
be known as traditional grammar began with the work Main article: Generative grammar
of Dionysius Thrax.
For centuries, work in syntax was dominated by a framework known as grammaire gnrale, rst expounded in
1660 by Antoine Arnauld in a book of the same title.
This system took as its basic premise the assumption that
language is a direct reection of thought processes and
therefore there is a single, most natural way to express a
thought.

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
the grammaticality of any given utterance (that is, to predict whether the utterance would sound correct to native
speakers of the language). 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.

However, in the 19th century, with the development of

historical-comparative linguistics, linguists began to realize the sheer diversity of human language and to question
fundamental assumptions about the relationship between
language and logic. It became apparent that there was no
such thing as the most natural way to express a thought,
and therefore logic could no longer be relied upon as a
basis for studying the structure of language.
Among the many generative theories of linguistics, the
The Port-Royal grammar modeled the study of syntax Chomskyan theories are:
1

3 MODERN THEORIES
Transformational grammar (TG) (Original theory of 3.3 Dependency grammar
generative syntax laid out by Chomsky in Syntactic
Structures in 1957)[7]
Main article: Dependency grammar
Dependency grammar is an approach to sentence struc Government and binding theory (GB) (revised theory in the tradition of TG developed mainly by
Chomsky in the 1970s and 1980s)[8]
Minimalist program (MP) (a reworking of the theory out of the GB framework published by Chomsky
in 1995)[9]

Other theories that nd their origin in the generative

paradigm are:
Arc pair grammar

A syntactic parse of Alfred spoke under the dependency formalism

Generalized phrase structure grammar (GPSG; now ture where syntactic units are arranged according to the
dependency relation, as opposed to the constituency relargely out of date)
lation of phrase structure grammars. Dependencies are
Generative semantics (now largely out of date)
directed links between words. The (nite) verb is seen as
the root of all clause structure and all the other words in
Head-driven phrase structure grammar (HPSG)
the clause are either directly or indirectly dependent on
this root. Some prominent dependency-based theories of
Lexical functional grammar (LFG)
syntax are:
Nanosyntax
Relational grammar (RG) (now largely out of date)

3.2

Categorial grammar

Main article: Categorial grammar

Categorial grammar is an approach that attributes the syntactic structure not to rules of grammar, but to the properties of the syntactic categories themselves. For example,
rather than asserting that sentences are constructed by a
rule that combines a noun phrase (NP) and a verb phrase
(VP) (e.g., the phrase structure rule S NP VP), in categorial grammar, such principles are embedded in the category of the head word itself. So the syntactic category
for an intransitive verb is a complex formula representing
the fact that the verb acts as a function word requiring an
NP as an input and produces a sentence level structure as
an output. This complex category is notated as (NP\S)
instead of V. NP\S is read as a category that searches
to the left (indicated by \) for an NP (the element on the
left) and outputs a sentence (the element on the right).
The category of transitive verb is dened as an element
that requires two NPs (its subject and its direct object) to
form a sentence. This is notated as (NP/(NP\S)) which
means a category that searches to the right (indicated by
/) for an NP (the object), and generates a function (equivalent to the VP) which is (NP\S), which in turn represents
a function that searches to the left for an NP and produces
a sentence.
Tree-adjoining grammar is a categorial grammar that
adds in partial tree structures to the categories.

Recursive categorical syntax, or Algebraic syntax

Functional generative description
Meaningtext theory
Operator grammar
Word grammar
Lucien Tesnire (18931954) is widely seen as the father of modern dependency-based theories of syntax and
grammar. He argued vehemently against the binary division of the clause into subject and predicate that is associated with the grammars of his day (S NP VP) and
which remains at the core of most phrase structure grammars. In the place of this division, he positioned the verb
as the root of all clause structure.[10]

3.4 Stochastic/probabilistic
mars/network theories

gram-

Theoretical approaches to syntax that are based upon

probability theory are known as stochastic grammars.
One common implementation of such an approach makes
use of a neural network or connectionism. Some theories
based within this approach are:
Optimality theory
Stochastic context-free grammar

4.1

3.5

Syntactic terms

Functionalist grammars

Main article: Functional theories of grammar

3
Category
Catena
Clause

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:

Closed class word

Comparative
Complement

Cognitive grammar

Compound noun and adjective

Construction grammar (CxG)

Conjugation

Emergent grammar

Conjunction

Functional discourse grammar (Dik)

Constituent

Prague linguistic circle

Coordination

Role and reference grammar (RRG)

Coreference

Systemic functional grammar

Crossover
Dangling modier

See also

4.1

Syntactic terms

Adjective
Adjective phrase
Adjunct
Adpositional phrase
Adverb
Anaphora

Declension
Dependency grammar
Dependent marking
Determiner
Discontinuity
Do-support
Dual (form for two)
Ellipsis
Endocentric

Answer ellipsis

Exceptional case-marking

Antecedent

Expletive

Antecedent-contained deletion

Extraposition

Appositive

Finite verb

Argument

Function word

Article

Gapping

Aspect

Gender

Attributive adjective and predicative adjective

Gerund

Auxiliary verb

Government

Binding

Head

Branching

Head marking

c-command

Innitive

Case

Inverse copular construction

4 SEE ALSO
Inversion

Pseudogapping

Lexical item

Raising

m-command

Relation (Grammatical relation)

Measure word (classier)

Restrictiveness

Merge

Right node raising

Modal particle
Modal verb
Modier
Mood
Movement
Movement paradox
Nanosyntax
Negative inversion
Non-congurational language

Sandhi
Scrambling
Selection
Sentence
Separable verb
Shifting
Singular
Sluicing

Non-nite verb

Small clause

Noun

Stripping

Noun ellipsis

Subcategorization

Noun phrase

Subject

Number

Subject-auxiliary inversion

Object

Subject-verb inversion

Open class word

Subordination

Parasitic gap

Superlative

Part of speech
Particle
Periphrasis
Person
Personal pronoun
Pied-piping
Phrasal verb
Phrase
Phrase structure grammar

Tense
Topicalization
Tough movement
Uninected word
V2 word order
Valency
Verb
Verb phrase

Plural

Verb phrase ellipsis

Predicate

Voice

Predicative expression

Wh-movement

Preposition and postposition

Word order

Pronoun

X-bar theory

Notes

[1] Chomsky, Noam (2002) [1957]. Syntactic Structures. p.

11.
[2] Fortson IV, Benjamin W. (2004). Indo-European Language and Culture: An Introduction. Blackwell. p. 186.
ISBN 978-1405188968. [The Adhyy ] is a highly precise and thorough description of the structure of Sanskrit
somewhat resembling modern generative grammar...[it]
remained the most advanced linguistic analysis of any
kind until the twentieth century.
[3] Arnauld, Antoine (1683). La logique (5th ed.). Paris:
G. Desprez. p. 137. Nous avons emprunt...ce que
nous avons dit...d'un petit Livre...sous le titre de Grammaire
gnrale.
[4] Giorgio, Gra (2001). 200 Years of Syntax: A Critical
Survey (googlebook preview). John Benjamins Publishing.
[5] See Bickerton, Derek (1990). Language and Species.
University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-04610-9. and,
for more recent advances, Derek Bickerton; Ers Szathmry, ed. (2009). Biological foundations and origin of
syntax. MIT Press. ISBN 978-0-262-01356-7.
[6] Ted Briscoe, 2 May 2001, Interview with Gerald Gazdar.
Retrieved 2008-06-04.
[7] Chomsky, Noam. 1957. Syntactic Structures.
Hague/Paris: Mouton, p. 15.

The

[8] Chomsky, Noam (1981/1993). Lectures on Government

and Binding: The Pisa Lectures. Mouton de Gruyter.
[9] Chomsky, Noam (1995). The Minimalist Program. MIT
Press.
[10] Concerning Tesnires rejection of the binary division of
the clause into subject and predicate and in favor of the
verb as the root of all structure, see Tesnire (1969:103
105).

Mieszko Talasiewicz (2009).

Philosophy of
SyntaxFoundational Topics. Springer. ISBN 97890-481-3287-4. An interdisciplinary essay on the
interplay between logic and linguistics on syntactic
theories.
Tesnire, Lucien 1969. lemnts de syntaxe structurale. 2nd edition. Paris: Klincksieck.

7 Further reading
Martin Everaert, Henk Van Riemsdijk, Rob Goedemans and Bart Hollebrandse, ed. (2006). The
Blackwell companion to syntax. Blackwell. ISBN
978-1-4051-1485-1. 5 Volumes; 77 case studies of
syntactic phenomena.
Brian Roark; Richard William Sproat (2007). Computational approaches to morphology and syntax.
Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-9274772. part II: Computational approaches to syntax.
Isac, Daniela; Charles Reiss (2013). I-language:
An Introduction to Linguistics as Cognitive Science,
2nd edition. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199660179.
Edith A. Moravcsik (2006). An introduction to syntax: fundamentals of syntactic analysis. Continuum International Publishing Group. ISBN 9780-8264-8945-6. Attempts to be a theory-neutral
introduction. The companion Edith A. Moravcsik
(2006). An introduction to syntactic theory. Continuum International Publishing Group. ISBN 978-08264-8943-2. surveys the major theories. Jointly
reviewed in The Canadian Journal of Linguistics
54(1), March 2009, pp. 172175

8 External links
6

References
Brown, Keith; Jim Miller (eds.) (1996). Concise
Encyclopedia of Syntactic Theories. New York: Elsevier Science. ISBN 0-08-042711-1.
Carnie, Andrew (2006). Syntax: A Generative Introduction (2nd ed.). Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. ISBN
1-4051-3384-8.
Freidin, Robert; Howard Lasnik (eds.) (2006). Syntax. Critical Concepts in Linguistics. New York:
Routledge. ISBN 0-415-24672-5.
Gra, Giorgio (2001). 200 Years of Syntax. A Critical Survey. Studies in the History of the Language
Sciences 98. Amsterdam: Benjamins. ISBN 90272-4587-8.

The syntax of natural language: An online introduction using the Trees programBeatrice Santorini &
Anthony Kroch, University of Pennsylvania, 2007

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