The second area I learned about was syntax. Syntax is the study of sentence structure.
The most fundamental part of syntax is constituents. Constituents are words in a sentence that go together. You can often test which groups of words are constituents by rephrasing the sentence as a question:
Example sentence: This sentence is an example.
Q: What is this sentence?
A: An example
You can see that “an example” goes together. You wouldn’t answer “sentence is,” for example.
There are many types of constituents. I will demonstrate a few of them with the second sentence of this section: “syntax is the study of sentence structure," which is shown above.
Let’s start at the top. The whole thing is called a sentence (S). The best definition for sentence the textbook gave me is “a statement about an event or state.” It’s not necessarily a string of words that ends with a period. A sentence like I like tacos because they are tasty has two sentences within it, because it states two distinct facts: the speaker likes tacos and tacos are tasty.
The sentence starts with a Noun Phrase (NP). Seeing that this is only a single noun, syntax, this term might seem unnecessary. The next NP, the study of sentence structure, is a better demonstration. An NP can be a single word or a group of words. A noun can only talk about a single word, like boy. A noun phrase, though, can be boy, the boy, the little boy or even the little boy who likes toys. One can put a verb before or after any of these, like the little boy who likes toys lives across the street. Or, as in the example sentence, syntax is the study of sentence structure.
For now, we’ll skip the Auxiliary and move on to the Verb Phrase (VP). Constituents consist of heads and complements. The head of a constituent is the same as the name of its category. The head of an VP is a verb, the head of an NP is a noun, etc. The head is the main part of a constituent. Everything in the constituent is about the head. The entire VP is about being. It’s about inhabiting a certain state. The rest of the sentence, the complements, are there to add specificity as to what state syntax is inhabiting. But the most essential part of the constituent is that something is inhabiting a state.
The auxiliary (Aux) in the middle is considered the head of the sentence. As I mentioned, a sentence is a statement about an event. The Aux tells when the event takes place. Auxes include will, is (like is reading), have (like have done) and sometimes the Aux will simply say past before a past tense verb, to indicate the event happened in the past. For one reason or another, the most important part of a sentence, a statement of an event, is considered to be when it takes place.
All the other constituents are fairly self-explanatory after understanding the principles of how they work. A prepositional phrase is headed by a preposition, an adjective is headed by an adjective, etc.
I know this all might seem confusing, but I found it understandable once I started diagramming sentences myself. We all have a sense of when a verb is the main part of a group of words. Between The person likes the cat and The person who likes the cat wants to keep it, I think we know which one has likes as a more prominent role. We can see that likes in the second sentence is just part of a Noun Phrase. When it comes to recognizing constituents, we know by instinct which groups are constituents and which groups are not. The person and the cat seem like natural groupings, likes the does not. One gets this feeling because they know how this sentence could be rearranged. One could move those groups around and the sentence would still make sense, even if the meaning is changed. The cat likes the person is fine, but not The cat person likes the. It’s very obvious to us. When diagramming sentences, instincts help out a lot.
The most fundamental part of syntax is constituents. Constituents are words in a sentence that go together. You can often test which groups of words are constituents by rephrasing the sentence as a question:
Example sentence: This sentence is an example.
Q: What is this sentence?
A: An example
You can see that “an example” goes together. You wouldn’t answer “sentence is,” for example.
There are many types of constituents. I will demonstrate a few of them with the second sentence of this section: “syntax is the study of sentence structure," which is shown above.
Let’s start at the top. The whole thing is called a sentence (S). The best definition for sentence the textbook gave me is “a statement about an event or state.” It’s not necessarily a string of words that ends with a period. A sentence like I like tacos because they are tasty has two sentences within it, because it states two distinct facts: the speaker likes tacos and tacos are tasty.
The sentence starts with a Noun Phrase (NP). Seeing that this is only a single noun, syntax, this term might seem unnecessary. The next NP, the study of sentence structure, is a better demonstration. An NP can be a single word or a group of words. A noun can only talk about a single word, like boy. A noun phrase, though, can be boy, the boy, the little boy or even the little boy who likes toys. One can put a verb before or after any of these, like the little boy who likes toys lives across the street. Or, as in the example sentence, syntax is the study of sentence structure.
For now, we’ll skip the Auxiliary and move on to the Verb Phrase (VP). Constituents consist of heads and complements. The head of a constituent is the same as the name of its category. The head of an VP is a verb, the head of an NP is a noun, etc. The head is the main part of a constituent. Everything in the constituent is about the head. The entire VP is about being. It’s about inhabiting a certain state. The rest of the sentence, the complements, are there to add specificity as to what state syntax is inhabiting. But the most essential part of the constituent is that something is inhabiting a state.
The auxiliary (Aux) in the middle is considered the head of the sentence. As I mentioned, a sentence is a statement about an event. The Aux tells when the event takes place. Auxes include will, is (like is reading), have (like have done) and sometimes the Aux will simply say past before a past tense verb, to indicate the event happened in the past. For one reason or another, the most important part of a sentence, a statement of an event, is considered to be when it takes place.
All the other constituents are fairly self-explanatory after understanding the principles of how they work. A prepositional phrase is headed by a preposition, an adjective is headed by an adjective, etc.
I know this all might seem confusing, but I found it understandable once I started diagramming sentences myself. We all have a sense of when a verb is the main part of a group of words. Between The person likes the cat and The person who likes the cat wants to keep it, I think we know which one has likes as a more prominent role. We can see that likes in the second sentence is just part of a Noun Phrase. When it comes to recognizing constituents, we know by instinct which groups are constituents and which groups are not. The person and the cat seem like natural groupings, likes the does not. One gets this feeling because they know how this sentence could be rearranged. One could move those groups around and the sentence would still make sense, even if the meaning is changed. The cat likes the person is fine, but not The cat person likes the. It’s very obvious to us. When diagramming sentences, instincts help out a lot.