Grammar and Syntax 1 Gemma Starling

Phrases A phrase is one or more words, functioning as a unit in a sentence, usually containing a head word and an accompanying modifier. The head word is the main word used in a phrase. Modifiers are words that describe the head word or give us more information about it. If they come before the head word they are called pre-modifiers, and if they come after the head word they are called post-modifiers. If the head word is a verb, the phrase is a verb phrase; if the head word is an adjective, the phrase is an adjective phrase, and so on. Looking at noun phrases will help to understand how phrases work.

Noun Phrases Most sentences have one or more noun phrase. A noun phrase usually has a noun or pronoun as its head word. These are all noun phrases: the house the old house the beautiful old house the house over there the house across the road The head word in all of these examples is ‘house’, in each case preceded by the pre- modifying determiner (the). Many noun phrases also have adjectives that act as pre- modifiers. In the two examples above ‘old’ and ‘beautiful’ are used in this way. The last two examples have post-modifiers ‘over there’ and ‘across the road’. Noun phrases can be very short (single noun or pronoun), or quite lengthy if several pre- modifiers and post-modifiers are used to describe the head word: The beautiful old house at the far end of the street is a single noun phrase.

Clauses Phrases can be combined to form clauses. A clause has to contain a verb phrase, and usually consists of a verb phrase and one or more other types of phrase. Rather like noun phrases, a verb phrase can be a single word (Go), or a few words if auxiliary verbs are added to the main verb (might go, will go, should have gone). There are five elements that can be combined in various ways to form clauses

A visitor / called / the house / a ruin / yesterday. Clause elements All five are present in this example: A visitor / called / the house / a ruin / yesterday. The subject of a clause performs the action that is described, so it usually comes before the verb. It is normally a noun phrase The verb is the second element The object normally follows the verb, providing an answer to the question, ‘Who or what has something been done to?’ As with the subject, the object in a clause is usually a noun phrase. The compliment gives more information about the subject or more information about the object. The adverbial is usually a kind of optional extra in a sentence. It usually provides information of the following kinds: Time – (When or how often something happened) He met her last night. Place – (where something happened) He met her in the park. Manner – (how something happened) He met her secretly.

Most clauses contain a subject and a verb Most clauses contain a subject and a verb. Depending on the type of clause, the other elements can be present in a variety of combinations. There are seven main clause types: S+V She / smiled. S+V+O He / closed / his eyes. S+V+O+O John / handed / Mark / a key. S+V+C Paula / was feeling / tired. S+V+O+C The crowd / made / her / angry. S+V+A Leaves / were falling / from the trees. S+V+O+A Fiona / put / the money / in her purse. Each of the above clause types makes sense on its own and can stand alone as a sentence. Look at the above examples of the seven clause types. Identify the noun phrase, or noun phrases, in each case. Where it is possible, add pre-modifiers or post-modifiers of your own to lengthen each noun phrase.

Word order: Foregrounding Word order in sentences can be used by writers to achieve particular effects. Foregrounding occurs when the usual word order of a sentence is changed in order to draw attention to a particular part of the sentence (often the beginning). In this example form E.M. Foster’s A Passage to India, the word ‘Dead’ is foregrounded by placing it at start of the sentence: Dead she was – committed to the deep while still on the southward track… FYI: End-focus occurs when the arrangement of words places particular emphasis on the end of a sentence. In the last line of a poem by Philip Larkin, the word order stresses the word love: What will survive of us is love.

Word order: Parallelism This occurs when parts of a sentence (or complete sentences) have a similar grammatical structure. This sentence is from After the Race, a short story in James Joyce’s Dubliners. It describes a crowd watching a car race in Dublin, in which many European cars are taking part: At the crest of a hill at Inchicare sightseers had gathered in clumps to watch the cars careering homeward and through this channel of poverty and inaction the Continent sped its wealth and industry. The parallel parts of this sentence are poverty and inaction and wealth and industry, where the grammatical sequence noun-conjunction-noun is repeated. The effect in this case is to point up the contrast between Ireland’s poverty and economic stagnation on the one hand and the wealth and commercial success of its European neighbours on the other. FYI: When structural patterns are apparent in sentences, this is also known as patterning.

Word order: Listing If a sentence contains a list, and within the list there are one or more conjunctions, this is know as syndetic listing. A sentence such as the following, which uses several conjunctions, is heavily syndetic (the sentence is from The Dead, another Joyce story): The raisins and almonds and figs and apples and oranges and chocolate and sweets were passed about the table and aunt Julia invited all the guest to have either port or sherry. If items are listed without the presence of any conjunctions, this is called asyndetic listing. ? What is the effect of heavily syndetic listing in this sentence?