语言学第4章

4.4.1 Structural analysis
One type of descriptive approach is called structural analysis. Its main objective is to study the distribution of linguistic forms in a language.
4.2 Word Classes
unacceptable a. Cries fear the the of hunter blackbirds the. b. The hunter fears the cries of the blackbirds. acceptable
What we are here concerned with is the grammatical structure.
The method involves the use of “test-frames”. car, radio, child, etc. (4) The _____ makes a lot of noise. All these linguistic forms fit in the same testframe, they are likely to belong to the same grammatical category, i.e. noun. noun
However, we should note that it does not mean that these prescriptive rules cannot be broken. In spoken English, for example, split infinitives as to boldly go instead of to go boldly or boldly to go are used sometimes.
b. *pretty the very girl
the order “adj., art., adv., N”
unacceptable
The rules which govern the structure of phrases are known as phrase structure rules or rewrite rules. Such rules allow for the generation of grammatical sentences in a language; they constitute a generative grammar for that language.
Sequences of words that observe the rules of syntax are said to be well formed or grammatical and those which violate the syntactic rules are therefore ill formed and ungrammatical.
Clearly, (1a) and (1b) do not have the same meaning.
(2) a. Jack looked up the word. b. Jack looked the word up.
Sometimes, however, a change of word order does not influence meaning.
Introduction to Linguistics
Chapter 4 Syntax
Contents
4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 4.7
Introduction
Word classes The Prescriptive Approach The Descriptive Approach Constituent Structure Grammar Transformational Grammar Systemic Functional Grammar
4.4 The Descriptive Approach
Throughout the 20th century, linguists collect samples of the language they are interested in and attempt to describe the regular structures of the language as it is used, not according to some view of how it should be used. This is called the descrar the the of hunter blackbirds the. (The asterisk * is often used to indicate that a structure is ill-formed, or ungrammatical.) The grammars of all languages include rules of syntax which reflect the speaker’s knowledge of these facts. The rules of syntax also explain the fact that although a sequence like (3) is made up meaningful words, it has no meaning.
Morphology
is concerned with the internal composition of a word.
Syntax
is concerned with combination of words.
the meaning of the words of which it is composed meaning of a sentence
The categories are traditionally called parts of speech, but now they are generally called word classes.
Nouns Adjectives Verbs Adverbs
Words used to refer to people, objects, creatures, places, etc. Words that describe the thing, quality, state or action which a noun refers to. Words used to refer to various actions and states involving the “things” in events. words that describe or add to the meaning of a verb, an adjective, another adverb, or a sentence, and which answers the questions introduced by how, where, when, etc. words used with nouns in phrases providing information about time, place and other connections involving actions and things. words which may replace nouns or noun phrases.
4.3 The Prescriptive Approach
Some grammarians, mainly in eighteenth-century England, lay down rules for the correct or “proper” use of English. (1)You must not split infinitives. (2)You must not end a sentence with a preposition.
This view of grammar as a set of rules for the “proper” use of a language is still to be found today and may be best characterized as the prescriptive approach.
4.1 Introduction
In the previous lecture, we have studied morphology, the structure of words. When we put words together to form sentences, we also get a structure. If we focus on the structure and ordering of components within a sentence, we are studying what is known as the syntax of a language.
cats good run, be quickly, slowly
Prepositions
at, in, with it, her and, but
Pronouns
Conjunctions words used to connect, and indicate relationships between events and things.
Now we can put our sentence into classes.
(1) a. The hunter fears the cries of the blackbirds.
S → art., N, V, art., N, prep., art., N.
acceptable
a. the very pretty girl the order “art., adv., adj., N”
It is valuable for us to be aware of the “proper” use of the language. If it is a social expectation that someone who writes well should obey these prescriptive rules.
Thus, we need different test-frames for these linguistic forms, which could be like the following: (6) ______ makes a lot of noise. (7) I heard a ______ yesterday.
Whether a word can occupy a certain position in a sentence depends on its grammatical category rather than its meaning. We can replace fear and cries by admire and speed respectively and the sentence is still grammatical, because both have been replaced by a word of the same category.
the structure of the sentence, such as word order.
(1) a. The hunter fears the cries of the blackbirds. b. The blackbirds fear the cries of the hunter.