1. Analysing Syntax 1
Lesson 8B

2. Sentences
Sentences, like the morphology of individual words, can be analysed using trees to illustrate their phrase structure
In order to be able to analyse a sentence you need to understand the main grammatical categories

3. Grammatical categories
Nouns (N)
dog, cat, apple, park etc.
Determiners (Det.)
a, the, this, that etc.
Verbs (V)
walk, come, go
Adjectives (A)
big, black, hairy etc.
Adverbs (Adv)
quickly, slowly etc.
Pronouns (PRO)
he, she etc.
Prepositions (P)
in, on, under, over etc.

4. Categories and trees Words have to be attached to their
grammatical category
dog the walks hairy park quickly in the N
Det V A N
Adv P
Det

5. Putting words in order words combine to form phrases
phrases combine to form sentences
What kind of phrases are there?

6. Types of phrase Noun phrase Verb phrase Prepositional phrase
Adverb phrase
Adjective Phrase

7. Phrases Each sentence contains a subject and a predicate
the hairy dog walks quickly in the park
Syntactically these correspond to:
a noun phrase and a verb phrase
the hairy dog walks quickly in the park

8. The top of the tree S NP VP
So the tree for any sentence (S) should start like this:
This means that every sentence is made up of a noun phrase and a verb phrase S NP VP

9. The bottom of the tree What we need to do is to connect: the structure
at the top
of the tree TO
the words of
the sentence
at the bottom
the hairy dog walks quickly in the park S NP VP
Det A N V
Adv P
Det N

10. Connecting top and bottom
You need to start at the bottom of the tree and build more phrases on to the categories. These phrases could be:
Noun phrases
Adverb phrases
Prepositional phrases
Adjective phrases

11. What about?
The dog ?
The park?

12. Noun phrase (NP)
A name is a noun and it attaches to a noun phrase
Romeo NP N

13. A simple noun phrase (NP)
Determiner (Det.) + Noun (N) = Noun Phrase (NP)
the dog the park NP NP
Det N
Det. N

14. Prepositional Phrase (PP)
Preposition + NP = Prepositional Phrase (PP)
in =
the park in the park P PP NP P NP
Det N
Det N

15. Adverb Phrase (Adv.P)
When there is just one adverb, it attaches to an Adverb Phrase (Adv.P)
quickly
Adv.P
Adv

16. Adjective Phrase (AP)
A single adjective attaches to an Adjective Phrase (AP)
hairy AP A

17. More on adjectives
Adjectives are often found in sentences as modifiers of nouns:
the hairy dog
modifier of noun
In this case they form part of a more complex noun phrase …

18. More complex noun phrases
… and they are analysed like this:
the hairy dog NP AP
Det N A

19. Inserting the phrases The subject NP
is easy to insert……………….……………… but the VP is
more difficult
the hairy dog walks quickly in the park S NP VP AP
Det A N V
Adv P
Det N

20. First you attach the Verb
the hairy dog walks quickly in the park S NP VP AP
Det A N V
Adv P
Det N

21. Then you attach the AdvP
the hairy dog walks quickly in the park S NP VP AP
AdvP
Det A N V
Adv P
Det N

22. Then you attach the PP the hairy dog walks quickly in the park S NP VPAP
AdvP
Det A N V
Adv P
Det N

23. What a complete tree looks like
a sentence
divides into a noun phrase ……………….. and a verb phrase
these attach to
phrases or
and categories
categories
attach to
words the hairy dog walks quickly in the park S NP VP PP NP AP
AdvP
Det A N V
Adv P
Det N

24. How to analyse the syntactic structure of a simple sentence
It’s a bit like decorating a Christmas tree:
Write S NP + VP at the top
Write the words of the sentence at the bottom
Write the categories above the words
Where necessary put the categories into phrase structures (NP, Adv,P, AP, PP)
Attach the phrase structures to the main NP and VP

25. Ambiguous sentences These sentences look the same but they
have a different meaning
The man hit the intruder with a stick
The man hit the intruder with a wooden leg
They should have a different syntactic
structure. Where is the difference going to be

26. Disambiguating With a wooden leg and with a stick are
both prepositional expressions
BUT ……
with a wooden leg is about the intruder so it is attached to the noun
with a stick is about how he hit the intruder so it is attached to the verb

27. Different structure hit the intruder with a wooden leg attached to NP
hit the intruder with a stick
attached to VP
hit the intruder with a stick VP VP NP PP NP PP NP NP NP AP V D N P D A N V D N P D N

28. Juliet loves Romeo
Romeo loves Juliet S NP VP NP N V N

29. He loves carrots
He loves carrots S NP VP NP
PRO V N

30. The lamb followed Mary
The lamb followed Mary S NP VP NP
Det V N N

31. The cat killed the mouseNP VP NP
Det V N
Det N

32. Jack killed the giant
Jack killed the giant S NP VP NP V N
Det N

33. She solved the mystery
She solved the mystery S NP VP NP V
PRO
Det N

34. Beavers build dams
Beavers build dams S NP VP NP V N N

35. Beavers build dams
Beavers build dams S NP VP NP V N N