5.4 Syntactic Structures
Chapter 2
Syntactic Construction
The term of construction refers to a concept of a units of meaningful language. On the other hand, syntactic construction is a units of a language such as phrase, clause, and sentence. The smallest unit in the construction is a free morpheme or word. There are some characteristics of sytactic construction (1) free morpheme, (2) the relationship between the free morpheme and bound morpheme or compound, (3) irregular structure of the unit, (4) the form of phrase, clause, and sentence.
I. Phrase
The phrase is one of the units of language as potentially composed by one or more words that do not function as a clause (Cook, 1971: 91) or unpredicative. (Kridalaksana, 2001:177). Ramlan (2001:138) argue that a phrase has no similar constituents beyond a clause. Clearly, a phrase is a grammatical unit that is formed by one or more words. Their functions in a clause as a subject, predicate, object, circumstance, and complement. Languages differ in the orders they impose on sequences of words. For example, in English (and many other languages), adjectives typically precede the nouns they modify, whereas, in Spanish (and many other languages), adjectives typically follow the nouns they modify. Language learners must learn the orders expected in the target language. Their teachers must know the ordering possibilities and be able to articulate them in ways their students can learn from. As we examine phrases, then, we study how words relate to each other in the smallest of the larger linguistic structures.
Clause Patterns and Modifications of Basic Clause Patterns, we examine the ways in which phrases form clauses. Our discussion here will treat the five major phrase types in English:
1. Adverb Phrase (AdvP)
2. Prepositional Phrase (PP)
3. Adjective Phrase (AP)
4. Noun Phrase (NP)
5. Verb Phrase (VP)
We will discuss each of the five types in a similar way. First, we will examine their basic functional patterns; then how those functions are realized by structural possibilities; and, where appropriate, we will explore some of the complexities associated with each type of phrase.
What is a phrase? Traditionally “phrase” is defined as “a group of words that does not contain a verb and its subject and are used as a single part of speech.” This definition entails three characteristics: (1) it specifies that only a group of words can constitute a phrase, implying that a single word cannot; (2) it distinguishes phrases from clauses; and (3) it requires that the groups of words believed to be a phrase constitute a single grammatical unit. We accept (2) and (3) but must revise (1). We reject the claim that single words cannot constitute phrases. First, a word and a phrase may play identical grammatical roles in a clause, as (1) and (2) demonstrate: (1) Most of the members of the genus aves fly. (2) Birds fly. Most of the members of the genus aves are the subject of (1) and birds are the subject of (2), showing that single words and phrases can function identically in clauses. There are two inferences that we can draw from this fact: (a) a subject can consist of either a single noun or a noun phrase, or (b) subjects are phrases, and so whatever functions as a subject must be a phrase. If we assume (a), then whenever we define subject (and any other grammatical function, such as predicate, direct object, indirect object, etc.), we must always specify that it can be expressed as a word or as a phrase. Linguists would say that this formulation is more complex than it needs to be because it fails to articulate a more general pattern. The broader generalization is that these grammatical relations are always expressed as phrases and phrases that can consist of either a single word or a unified group of words. Below, we will show how and when words can be phrases. Second, single words and phrases may be replaced by identical proforms. We can replace the subjects of both (1) and (2) with They: (1) a. They fly. (2) a. They fly. Again, there are two inferences we can draw: (a) pronouns can replace either a noun or a noun phrase, or (b) pronouns replace phrases. Again, (b) is more general, but it does require us to specify when words can function as phrases. A single word may be a phrase when it is the head of that phrase. The head of a phrase is the phrase’s central element; any other words (or phrases) in the phrase orient to it, either by modifying it or complementing it. The head determines the phrase’s grammatical category: if the head is a noun, the phrase is a noun phrase; if the head is a verb, the phrase is a verb phrase, and so on. The head can also determine the internal grammar of the phrase: if the head is a noun, then it may be modified by an article; if the head is a transitive verb, it must be complemented by a direct object. Heads also determine such things as the number of their phrases: if the head of an NP is singular, then the NP is singular; if the head is plural, then the NP is plural. Crucially, the head of a phrase may occur alone in the phrase, that is, without modification or complementation. Let’s look a little closer at what expressions may be replaced by pronouns. Specifically, let’s test the claim made in many textbooks that pronouns can replace nouns or noun phrases. Consider (3):
(3) Fooster hates the cabbage.
If we replace the NP the cabbage in (3) with the pronoun it we get the perfectly grammatical (3a):
(3) a. Fooster hates it.
However, given the typical textbook definition of pronoun as a word that can replace either nouns or noun phrases, we should be able to replace just the noun cabbage in (3) with it. However, when we do so, we create the wildly ungrammatical (3b): (3) b. *Fooster hates the it. So, why is (3a) fine but (3b) is not? To create (3a) we replaced the entire phrase the cabbage, but for (3b) we replaced only a part of the phrase. It appears that when we pronominalize we must replace an entire phrase with a pronoun, not just a random piece of it. It follows that if we can successfully replace an expression with a pronoun, then that expression must be a complete phrase. To check this, consider what happens when we replace cabbage in (3c) with a pronoun; we get the grammatical (3d):
(3) c. Fooster hates cabbage.
(3) d. Fooster hates it.
So, cabbage is just a noun in (3) and therefore cannot be replaced by a pronoun; but in (3c) it is both a noun and a noun phrase (as the diagram shows), and so can be pronominalized, proved by the fact that (3d) is grammatical. Let’s add just one more test to the two tests for phrasehood we’ve already used (capable of functioning as a grammatical relation and capable of being replaced by a pronoun): if an expression can be moved from one part of a sentence to another without any internal reorganization, then that expression is a phrase. We can use our cabbage sentences for this test too. We can successfully move the cabbage in (3) to the left of the subject, giving us:
(3) e. The cabbage, Fooster hates.
But when we try to move just the N cabbage, the result is ungrammatical, just as when we tried to pronominalize cabbage in (3):
(3) f. *Cabbage, Fooster hates the.
Analogously, when we move cabbage in (3c) in which cabbage occurs alone, the result is also grammatical:
(3) g. Cabbage, Fooster hates.
So, we’ve applied three tests—the ability to function as a grammatical relation, pronominalization, and movement—and all three have yielded the same results: a phrase may consist of a unified group of words, or of a single word as long as that word is the phrase’s head. There is an important methodological precept here: the more arguments you can marshal in favor of your analysis and definitions, the more confidence you can place in them. Our new, improved definition of “phrase”: a phrase is a grammatical unit, intermediate between a word and a clause, which may consist of just one word (its head) or its head and expressions (including other phrases) that modify or complement it (see below). This definition retains the traditional distinctions between word and phrase and between phrase and clause. It adds the requirement that phrases have heads and allows a phrase to consist of just its head. In considering word classes, we examined the most important ones first. In this chapter, we will present the three less complex types first— adverb, prepositional, and adjective. The reason for this seemingly backward approach is that the two major phrase types—noun phrases and verb phrases—often include the minor types as subparts. But first, we must make a brief detour to discuss the important distinction between modification and complementation.