Syntactics

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Syntactics is the arrangement of words and phrases to create well-formed sentences in a language. It is a branch of linguistics, also a set of rules for or an analysis of this arrangement.

Theoretical syntactics

"In linguistics, syntax ... is "the study of the principles and processes by which sentences are constructed in particular languages."[1]"[2]

Def.

  1. "[a] set of rules that govern how words are combined to form phrases and sentences,
  2. computing [t]he formal rules of formulating the statements of a computer language, [and]
  3. linguistics [t]he study of the structure of phrases, sentences and language"[3]

is called syntax.

Def. "the formal relations between signs or expressions in abstraction from their signification and their interpreters"[4] is called syntactics.

For syntactics, a proof of concept is a practical demonstration of the arrangement of words and phrases to create well-formed sentences in a language, and a set of rules for or an analysis of this arrangement.

Grammars

"[G]rammar is the set of structural rules that governs the composition of clauses, phrases, and words in any given natural language."[5]

Def. a "system of rules and principles for speaking and writing a language"[6] is called a grammar.

"A grammeme ... is a unit of grammar, just as a lexeme is a lexical unit and a morpheme is a morphological unit. More specifically, a grammeme is a value of a grammar category[7]. For example, singular and plural are grammemes of the category grammatical number, noun and verb are grammemes of the category part of speech".[8]

Syntactic analysis

Def. "the process of analyzing a text, made of a sequence of tokens (for example, words), to determine its grammatical structure with respect to a given (more or less) formal grammar"[9] is called syntactic analysis.

Def.

1: "[resolving] (as a sentence) into component parts of speech and [describing] them grammatically"
2: "describing grammatically by stating the part of speech and explaining the inflection and syntactical relationships"

is called parsing.[4]

Syntagmatics

"[A] syntagma is an elementary constituent segment within a text. Such a segment can be a phoneme, a word, a grammatical phrase, a sentence, or an event within a larger narrative structure, depending on the level of analysis."[10]

Syntagmatic structures

"At the lexical level, syntagmatic structure in a language is the combination of words according to the rules of syntax for that language. For example English uses determiner + adjective + noun, e.g. the big house. Another language might use determiner + noun + adjective (Spanish la casa grande) and therefore have a different syntagmatic structure."[10]

"At a higher level, narrative structures feature a realistic temporal flow guided by tension and relaxation; thus, for example, events or rhetorical figures may be treated as syntagmas of epic structures."[10]

Syntagmatic analysis

"Syntagmatic analysis involves the study of relationships (rules of combination) among syntagmas. ... In semiotics, "syntagmatic analysis" is analysis of syntax or surface structure (syntagmatic structure) ... Analysis is often achieved through commutation tests.[11]"[10]

Anaphoras

"[A]n anaphora ... is a type of expression whose reference depends upon another referential element. ... Anaphora is an important concept for different reasons and on different levels. First, anaphora indicates "how discourse is constructed and maintained". Second, on the level of the sentence, anaphora binds different syntactical elements together. Third, in computational linguistics anaphora presents a challenge to natural language processing, since the identification of the reference can be challenging. Fourth, anaphora "tells us some things about how language is understood and processed", which is relevant to fields of linguistics interested in cognitive psychology.[12]"[13]

Def.

  1. the "repetition of a phrase at the beginning of phrases, sentences, or verses, used for emphasis",[14]
  2. an " expression that can refer to virtually any referent, the specific referent being defined by context",[15]
  3. an "expression that refers to a preceding expression",[14]
is called an anaphora.

"[C]ataphora is used to describe an expression that co-refers with a later expression in the discourse. An example of strict, sentence-internal cataphora in English is the following sentence:

  • When he arrived home, John went to sleep.

In this sentence, the pronoun he (the anaphor) appears earlier than the noun John (the antecedent) that it refers to, the reverse of the normal pattern (anaphora), where a referring expression such as John or the soldier appears before any pronouns that reference it. Both cataphora and anaphora are types of endophora."[16]

Def. the "use of a pronoun, or other linguistic unit, before the noun phrase to which it refers, sometimes used for rhetorical effect"[17] is called a cataphora.

"Endophora is an expression that refers to something in the same text. For example, in the sentences "I saw Sally yesterday. She was lying on the beach", "she" is an endophoric expression because it refers to something already mentioned in the text, i.e. "Sally". By contrast, "She was lying on the beach," if it appeared by itself, has an exophoric expression; "she" refers to something that the reader is not told about. That is to say, there is not enough information in the text to independently determine to whom "she" refers. It can refer to someone the speaker assumes his audience has prior knowledge of or it can refer to a person he is showing to his listeners. Without further information, in other words, there is no way of knowing the exact meaning of an exophoric term. Endophora can be broken into three subcategories: cataphora, anaphora and self-reference."[18]

Def. "an expression that refers to something in the same text"[19] is called an endophora.

"Self-reference occurs in natural or formal languages when a sentence, idea or formula refers to itself. The reference may be expressed either directly—through some intermediate sentence or formula—or by means of some encoding."[20]

Cases

"[T]he case of a noun or pronoun is an inflectional form that indicates its grammatical function in a phrase, clause, or sentence. For example, a pronoun may play the role of subject ("I kicked the ball"), of object ("John kicked me"), or of possessor ("That ball is mine")."[21]

"Usually a language is said to "have cases" only if nouns change their form (decline) to reflect their case in this way. Other languages perform the same function in different ways. English, for example, uses prepositions such as "of" or "with" in front of a noun to indicate functions which in Ancient Greek or Latin would be indicated by changing (declining) the ending of the noun itself."[21]

"More formally, case has been defined as "a system of marking dependent nouns for the type of relationship they bear to their heads."[22] Cases should be distinguished from thematic roles such as agent and patient. They are often closely related, and in languages such as Latin several thematic roles have an associated case, but cases are a morphological notion, while thematic roles are a semantic one. Languages having cases often exhibit free word order, since thematic roles are not dependent on position in a sentence."[21]

Original research

Hypothesis:

  1. Each old, nearly extinct, or extinct language has a syntax.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Noam Chomsky (2002) [1957]. [11 Syntactic Structures]. 11.
  2. ↑ "Syntax, In: Wikipedia". San Francisco, California: Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. November 29, 2012. Retrieved 2012-12-01.
  3. ↑ "syntax, In: Wiktionary". San Francisco, California: Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. October 16, 2012. Retrieved 2012-12-01.
  4. 1 2 Philip B. Gove, ed (1963). Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary. Springfield, Massachusetts: G. & C. Merriam Company. pp. 1221.
  5. ↑ "Grammar, In: Wikipedia". San Francisco, California: Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. November 29, 2012. Retrieved 2012-12-02.
  6. ↑ Bluelion~enwiktionary (13 June 2003). "grammar, In: Wiktionary". San Francisco, California: Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. Retrieved 2016-04-03.
  7. ↑ "Recent advances in computational linguistics". Retrieved 2011-08-13.
  8. ↑ "Grammeme, In: Wikipedia". San Francisco, California: Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. August 29, 2012. Retrieved 2012-12-02.
  9. ↑ "Parsing, In: Wikipedia". San Francisco, California: Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. November 24, 2012. Retrieved 2012-12-01.
  10. 1 2 3 4 "Syntagma (linguistics), In: Wikipedia". San Francisco, California: Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. June 10, 2012. Retrieved 2012-12-01.
  11. ↑
  12. ↑ Tony McEnery (2000). Corpus-based and computational approaches to discourse anaphora. John Benjamins. p. 3. ISBN 978-90-272-2272-5. http://books.google.com/books?id=n9MO0ugbqyAC&pg=PA3.
  13. ↑ "Anaphora (linguistics), In: Wikipedia". San Francisco, California: Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. November 27, 2012. Retrieved 2012-12-02.
  14. 1 2 Wmahan~enwiktionary (7 October 2005). "anaphora, In: Wiktionary". San Francisco, California: Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. Retrieved 2016-04-03.
  15. ↑ "anaphora, In: Wiktionary". San Francisco, California: Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 30 March 2016. Retrieved 2016-04-03.
  16. ↑ "Cataphora, In: Wikipedia". San Francisco, California: Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. November 23, 2012. Retrieved 2012-12-02.
  17. ↑ "cataphora, In: Wiktionary". San Francisco, California: Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 16 January 2016. Retrieved 2016-04-03.
  18. ↑ "Endophora, In: Wikipedia". San Francisco, California: Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. September 3, 2012. Retrieved 2012-12-02.
  19. ↑ Bequw (1 November 2008). "endophora, In: Wiktionary". San Francisco, California: Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. Retrieved 2016-04-03.
  20. ↑ "Self-reference, In: Wikipedia". San Francisco, California: Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. November 6, 2012. Retrieved 2012-12-02.
  21. 1 2 3 "Grammatical case, In: Wikipedia". San Francisco, California: Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. November 16, 2012. Retrieved 2012-12-02.
  22. ↑ Blake, Barry J. Case. Cambridge University Press: 2001.

Further reading

External links

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