Understanding Syntax (MEET 2)
Understanding Syntax (MEET 2)
By Maggie Tallerman
What is syntax?
Syntax is defined as sentence construction or how words group together to make phrases and
sentences. It is also given definition as the study of the syntactic properties of languages.
Syntax is said as one part of the grammar. Other grammar are phonology and morphology.
The study about how to organize the syntax using the language such as words and phrases to
form phrases and sentences.
The scope of study includes the classification of words, the order of words in phrases
and sentences, the different sentence constructions.
Examples are given in different languages. In order to know and understand the way syntax
works. It is given the syntactic concepts and technical terms.
“we will be talking about grammar, this is not a Descriptive Grammar or English or any other
language. Some books are usually aim to catalogue the regularities and peculiarities of one
language rather than looking at the organizing principles of language in general”.
Beralasan karena tujuannya itu, maka banyak contoh diambil dari bahasa-bahasa lain selain
bahasa Inggris.
Tujuan yang kedua “I won’t be trying to improve your grammar of English. Or it is not a
Prescriptive Grammar. No to teach where to use who and whom, when to say Kim and I, or
different than or different to. These are all social, not linguistic matters”.
Standard English
You know unconsciously a few prescriptive rules of your own language as do all its native
speakers.
Children have complete knowledge of grammar and learn more vocabulary like or parallel to
‘learning how to walk’.
The belief that some forms of language are better than others has no linguistic basis.
Tidak ada yang buruk lebih buruk lebih jelek lebih bagus tata bahasanya. Based only
on situation, formal or informal and purpose.
There are languages such as French and Breton that use a double negative as Standard, not a
dialectal form. On page 21.
B does not confirm to the usual rules of English grammar. It is lack of logic. It is irregularity.
Language change
“the grammar of all languages changes over time, and no amount of intervention by
prescriptive grammarians or language academics can prevent this”.
The examples of Middle English are from the prologue to Chaucer’s Wife of Bath’s Tale,
written in the fourteenth century.
The purposes: to learn about the differences and the similarities between English and
another language.
German. English and German, two closely related Germanic languages from northern
Europe.
Spanish
2. la cascada hermosa
Indonesian
3. surat itu
Letter the
‘the letter’
Spanish
4. Es nuevo
is new
‘it’s new’
Lexical and grammatical information
“Glosses contain both lexical information, printed in normal type, and Grammatical
information, printed in small capitals”.
Word order
In English, the word order is pretty fixed. Asterisk * means not grammatical
To be continued
15/03/2022