语言学教程_第三版_第四章_句法学

Chapter 4 From Word to Text

syntax

■Syntax is the study of the rules governing the ways different

constituents are combined to form sentences in a language, or the study of the interrelationships

betweenstructures.

elements

in

sentence

4.1 Syntactic relations■Syntactic relations can be analysed into three kinds: ■relations of position 位置关系 ■relations of substitutability 替代关系

■relations of co-occurrence 同现关系4.1.1 Positional Relations ■For language to fulfill its communicative function, it must have a way to mark the grammatical roles of the various phrases that can occur in a clause. The boy kicked the ball NP1 Subject NP2 Object

■Positional relation, or WORD ORDER, refers to the sequential arrangement of words in a language. ■If the words in a sentence fail to occur in a fixed order required by the convention of a language, one tends to produce an utterance either ungrammatical or nonsensical at all. ■For example, (a) The boy kicked the ball. (b)*Boy the ball kicked the (c)*The ball kicked the boy.

■The following two sentences have same words but opposite meaning. (a) The teacher saw the students. (b) The students saw the teacher. ■Positional relations are a manifestation of one aspect of Syntagmatic Relations(组合关系) observed by F. de Saussure. ■They are also called Horizontal Relations(横向关系)or simply Chain Relations(链状关系). ■Word order is among the three basic ways (word order, genetic and areal classifications) to classify languages in the world: ■SVO, VSO, SOV, OVS, OSV, and VOS. ■English belongs to SVO type, though this does not mean that SVO is the only possible word order.

4.1.2 Relation of Substitutability ■The Relation of Substitutability refers to classes or sets of words substitutable for each other grammatically in sentences with the same structure. ■The______ smiles. man boy girl ■It also refers to groups of more than one word which may be jointly substitutable grammatically for a single word of a particular set. strong man ■The tallest boy pretty girl yesterday. ■He went there last week. the day before. ■This is also called Associative Relations(联想关系)by Saussure(索绪尔), or Paradigmatic Relations(聚合 关系)by Hjemslev(叶列姆斯列夫). ■To make it more understandable, they are called Vertical Relations(纵向关系)or Choice Relations(选择关 系). smiles.

4.1.3 Relation of Co-occurrence ■It means that words of different sets of clauses may permit, or require, the occurrence of a word of another set or class to form a sentence or a particular part of a sentence. ■For instance, a nominal phrase can be preceded by a determiner and adjective(s) and followed by a verbal phrase.

■Relations of co-occurrence partly belong to syntagmatic relations, partly to paradigmatic relations.

英 语 专 业 考 研 真 题 精 选

一、Define the following terms paradigmatic

relations(also called associative relation by Saussure)[北京交通大学2005研，中山大学2006研] 【答案】Paradigmatic relation, originally called associative relation by Saussure, is a relation holding between elements replaceable with each other at a particular place in a structure, or between one element present and the others absent. 二、Short Essay Questions Why is it important to know the relations a linguistic sign has with others, such as syntagmatic and paradigmatic relations? (6)[四川大学2008研，北京第二外国语学院2005研] 【答案】As the relation between a signifier(能指)and its signified(所指)is arbitrary, the value of a sign(符号) cannot be determined by itself. To know the identity of a sign, the linguist will have to know the signs it is used together with and those it is substitutable for. The former relation is know as syntagmatic and the latter paradigmatic

三、Discussion Essays

Why is it important to know the relations a sign has with others, such as syntagmatic and paradigmaticrelations? [北京航空航天大学2008研] 【答案】In Saussure s view, language is a system of signs, each of which consists of two parts: “signified” (concept) and “signifier”(sound image). And the relationship between these two parts is arbitrary. Therefore the linguist cannot attempt to explain individual signs in a piecemeal fashion. Instead he must try to find the value of a

sign from its relations to others, or rather, its position in the system.The two principal types of relations which Saussure identified are Syntagmatic and Paradigmatic relations. The syntagmatic relation is a relation between one item and others in a sequence, or between elements which are all present. The paradigmatic(or associative) relation is a relation holding between elements replaceable with each other at a particular place in a structure, or between one element present and the others absent. They can substitute for each other without violating syntactic rules. The syntagmatic and paradigmatic relations together, like the two axes of a coordinate(坐标轴), determine the identity of a linguistic sign. Syntagms and paradigms provide a structural context within which signs make sense; they are the structural forms through which signs are organized into codes.

四、Multiple Choice1. ________ refer to the relationship that linguistic units have with other units because they may occur together in a sentence. a. Syntagmatic relations c. Paradigmatic relations b. Hypotactic relations d. Paratactic relations

[西安外国语学院2006研]【答案】a 2. _____________ refers to the relation holding between elements replaceable with each other at particular place in structure, or between one element present and the others absent. b. Paradigmatic relation c. Co-occurrence relation a. Syntagmatic relation [北京第二外国语学院2004研] 【答案】B

五、True or False Questions 1. Paradigma

tic relation in syntax is alternatively called horizontal relation. [北京第二外 国语学院2006研] 【答案】F Paradigmatic relation is also called vertical relation; horizontal relation is a term for syntagmatic relation. 2. It is characteristic of Halliday s theory that more attention is paid to paradigmatic relations than to syntagmatic relations, which is the main concern of Chomsky. [北京第二外 国语学院2007研] 【答案】T

4.2. Grammatical construction and its constituents

4.2.1 Grammatical Construction

■GRAMMATICAL CONSTRUCTION or CONSTRUCT: any syntactic construct which is assigned one or moreconventional functions in a language, together with whatever is linguistically conventionalized about its contribution to the meaning or use the construct contains. (语法结构或建构用来指语言中被赋予一种或多种功能 的任何语法建构，包括在语言学上该建构所拥有的常规意义和用法) ■On the level of syntax, we distinguish for any construction in a language its external and its internal properties. ■the external syntax: the properties of the construction as a whole, e.g. clausal type, phrasal type. ■ the internal syntaxate: a description of the construction s “make-up”, with the terms such as “subject, predicate, object, determiner, noun”.

Subject

+

Verb

+

Object (clausal type) an apple (object).

Mary (subject) Determiner + this (determiner)

ate (verb) Noun (phrasal type) edition (noun)

4.2.2 Immediate Constituent(直接成分)

■Constituent is a term used in structural sentence analysis for every linguistic unit, which is a part of a largerlinguistic unit. Several constituents together form a construction: ■the girl (NP) ■ate the apple (VP) ■the girl ate the apple (S)

■Immediate Constituent Analysis (IC Analysis)(直接成分分析法)The girl ate the apple

■The most common of syntactic categories:Word-level N=noun A=adjective V=verb P=preposition Det=determiner Adv=adverb Conj=conjunction Phrasal NP=noun phrase AP=adjective phrase VP=verb phrase PP=preposition phrase S=sentence or clause

■Analysis the construction The boy ate the apple: (a) Tree diagram

SNP Det N V Det The girl ate the VP NP N apple

(b)Bracketing: is not as common in use, but it is an economic notation in representing the constituent/phrase structure of a grammatical unit. ■(((The) (girl)) ((ate) ((the) (apple)))) ■[S[NP[Det The][N girl]][VP[V ate][NP[Det the][N apple]]]]

4.2.3 Endocentric and Exocentric Constructions4.2.3.1 Endocentric ■Endocentric construction(向心结构)is one whose distribution is functionally equivalent to that of one or more of its constituents, i.e., a word or a group of words, which serves as a definable centre(中心)or head(中心 词). ■ Usually noun phrases, verb phrases and adjective phrases belong to endocentric types because the constituent items are subordinate to the Head.

4.2.3.2 Exocentric ■

Exocentric construction(离心结构)refers to a group of syntactically related words where none of the words is functionally equivalent to the group as a whole, that is, there is no definable “Centre” or “Head” inside the group, usually including: ■the basic sentence(基本句), ■the prepositional phrase(介词短语), ■the predicate (verb + object) construction(谓语结构), and ■the connective (be + complement) construction(系表结构). E.g. ■The boy smiled. (Neither constituent can substitute for the sentence structure as a whole.) ■He hid behind the door. (Neither constituent can function as an adverbial.) ■He kicked the ball. (Neither constituent stands for the verb-object sequence.) ■John seemed angry. (After division, the connective construction no longer exists.)

4.2.4 Coordination and Subordination(并列关系和从属关系) Endocentric constructions fall into two main types, depending on the relation between constituents: coordination & subordination

4.2.4.1 Coordination(并列关系) ■Coordination is a common syntactic pattern in English and other languages formed by grouping together two or more categories of the same type with the help of a conjunction such as and, but and or . ■These two or more words or phrases or clauses have equivalent syntactic status, each of the separate constituents can stand for the original construction functionally. E.g. ■Coordination of NPs: ■[NP the lady] or [NP the tiger] ■Coordination of VPs: ■[VP go to the library] and [VP read a book ] ■Coordination of PPs: ■[PP down the stairs] and [PP out the door ] ■Coordination of APs: ■[AP quite expensive] and [AP very beautiful] ■Coordination of Ss: ■[S John loves Mary] and [S Mary loves John too]. ■One property of coordination: there is no limit on the number of coordinated categories that can appear prior to the conjunction, e.g. ■[NP A man, a woman, a boy, a cat and a dog] got into the car.

4.2.4.2 Subordination(从属关系)■Subordination refers to the process or result of linking linguistic units so that they have different syntactic status, one being dependent upon the other, and usually a constituent of the other. ■The subordinate constituents are words which modify the head. Consequently, they can be called modifiers.

E.g.■(a) two dogs modifier ■(b) (My brother) can drink (wine). modifier

■(c) Swimming in the lake (is fun).modifier ■(d) (The pepper was) hot beyond endurance. modifier

■Subordinate clauses

■Clauses can be used as subordinate constituents. There are three basic types of subordinateclauses: ■complement clauses, e.g. John believes [that the airplane was invented by an Irishman]. ■adjunct (or adverbial) clauses, e.g. Elizabeth opened her presents [before John finished his

dinner].■relative clauses, e.g. The woman [that I love] is moving to the south.

英 语 专 业 考 研 真 题 精 选

一、Define the followi

ng terms 1. immediate constituent[武汉大学2008研，武汉大学2006研] 【答案】Immediate constituent. An immediate constituent is the constituent immediately, directly, below the level of a construction. For example, in the sentence “Poor John ran away”, the constituents “Poor John” and “ran away” are regarded as the immediate constituents of the sentence. 2. IC analysis[人大2006研] 【答案】IC analysis. IC analysis (immediate constituent analysis) refers to the analysis of a sentence in terms of its immediate constituents---word groups(or phrases),which are in turn analyzed into the immediate constituents of their own, and the process goes on until the ultimate constituents are reached. In practice, for the sake of convenience, we usually stop at the level of word.

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