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1. NUML Faisalabad

BS English
General Linguistics

2.  what is syntax
Deep and surface structure
Tree diagrams
Symbols used in syntactic analysis
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3. Study of sentence structure based on rules
If we write rules for the creation of well-formed structures, we have
to check that those rules, when applied logically, won’t also lead to
ill-formed structures.
we saw that a noun phrase can consist of
a proper noun (London)
 a pronoun (you)
 a combination of an article (a, the)
 a noun (tree, dog)
So that the revised rule can produce these well-formed structures:
near London, with you, near a tree, with the dog.
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4. “A prepositional phrase in English consists of a
preposition followed by a noun phrase,”
 we can imagine extremely large number of
English phrases that could be produced using
this rule.
 In fact, the potential number is unlimited.
 This reflects another goal of syntactic
analysis, which is to have a small and
finite (i.e. limited) set of rules that will be
capable of producing a large and potentially
infinite (i.e. unlimited) number of well-formed
structures.
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5. This small and finite set of rules is sometimes
described as a generative grammar
This type of grammar should also be capable
of revealing the basis of two other
phenomena:
 First, how some superficially different
sentences are closely related
Second, how some superficially similar
sentences are in fact different.
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6. Two superficially different sentences are shown in these
examples:
Charlie broke the window.
The window was broken by Charlie.
In traditional grammar, the first is called an active
sentence, focusing on what Charlie did.
The second is a passive sentence, focusing on The
window and what happened to it.
The distinction between them is a difference in their
surface structure
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7. However, this superficial difference in form is that the
two sentences are very closely related, even
identical.
The other “underlying” level, where the basic
components (Noun Phrase + Verb + Noun Phrase)
shared by the two sentences can be represented, is
called their deep
structure.
The deep structure is an abstract level of structural
organization in which all the elements determining
structural interpretation are represented.
That same deep structure can be the source of many
other surface structures such as It was Charlie who
broke the window and Was the window broken by
Charlie?
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8. The rules of the grammar will also need the crucial property of
recursion.
Recursive (“repeatable any number of times”) rules have the
capacity to be applied more than once in generating a
structure.
we can have one prepositional phrase describing location (on
the table) in the sentence The gun was on the table.
We can also repeat this type of phrase, using different words
(near the window), for as long as the sentence still makes
sense (in the bedroom).
So, in order to generate a sentence such as
The gun was on the table near the window in the bedroom
we must be able to repeat the rule that creates a prepositional
phrase over and over again.
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9. We must also be able to put sentences inside
other sentences.
For example, when we produce a sentence
such as Cathy knew that Mary helped George.
And those two sentences can be generated
such as
 John believed that Cathy knew that Mary
helped George.
 In principle, there is no end to the recursion
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10. One of the most common ways to create a visual
representation of syntactic structure is through tree diagrams.
The symbols introduced (Art = article, N = noun, NP = noun
phrase) to label parts of the tree.
We can take the information in a labeled and bracketed
format.
Although this kind of “tree,” with its “branches,” shown on the
right, seems to grow down rather than up,
 It also shows very explicitly that there are different levels in
the analysis.
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This type of
hierarchical
organization can
be illustrated in a tree
diagram for a whole
sentence, beginning
at the top with S.
we begin with a sentence
(S) and divide it into two
constituents (NP and VP).
The NP constituent is
divided into two other
constituents (Art and N).
You can go through the
same procedure with the
VP branches.

12.  Some symbols that are used as abbreviations for syntactic
categories.
Examples are “S” (= sentence), “NP” (= noun phrase), “N” (=
noun), “Art” (=article), “V” (= verb) , “VP” (= verb phrase),“PP” (=
prepositional phrase), Articles (Det)
There are three more symbols that are commonly used in syntactic
description.
The first is in the form of an arrow →. It can be interpreted as
“consists of” or “rewrites as.”
It is typically used in the following type of rule NP → Art N
The second symbol is a pair of round brackets ( ).
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13. For example, we can describe something as the dog or
the small dog
NP → Art (Adj) N
We use the round brackets to indicate that the adjective
is optional.
we can use this notion to generate the dog, the small
dog, a cat, a big cat, the book, a boring book
The third symbol is in the form of curly brackets { }.
 Indicate that only one of the elements enclosed within
the curly brackets must be selected.
We use these types of brackets when we want to indicate
that there is a choice from two or more constituents.
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It is important to remember that,
although there are three constituents
inside these curly brackets, only one of
them can be selected on any occasion.

15. S
sentence
NP noun phrase PN proper noun
N noun VP verb phrase Adv adverb
V verb Adj adjective Prep preposition
Art article Pro pronoun PP prepositional phrase
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The list of common symbols and abbreviations is summarized here.

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