Syntax, Semantics, and Pragmatics: A Linguistic Overview
Syntax, Semantics, Pragmatics, and Semiotics
Syntax, derived from Greek, focuses on how words combine to form sentences. It analyzes sentence constituents, examining their form, position, and function, as well as their internal organization and relationships. Semantics studies how languages organize and express meanings, dealing with linguistic meanings. Pragmatics explores the additional meanings a sentence carries in specific contexts. Semiotics is the general science of communication, encompassing both verbal and non-verbal forms.
Clauses and Sentences
A clause is an immediate constituent of a sentence. A sentence is a word, clause, or phrase, or a group of clauses or phrases, forming a syntactic unit that expresses an assertion, question, command, or wish.
Sentence Types
- Simple Sentence: One independent clause, exhibiting minimal grammatical completeness and unity. Example: Sam bought the tickets.
- Compound Sentence: Two independent clauses linked in a relationship of coordination. Example: Sam bought the tickets, and Sue parked the car.
Predicates and Objects
Predicator: The function of the verb phrase (VP) in the clause, potentially encompassing the entire predicate or a portion thereof. Examples: The plane landed; The plane landed on the runway. It can be finite or non-finite.
- Indirect Object: Denotes the participant who receives something or benefits from the verb’s action. Example: He gave me some flowers. Occurs in ditransitive clauses, preceding the direct object (OD). Example: He poured me some tea.
- Prepositional Object: Occurs in clauses with prepositional verbs. While semantically selected by the verb, the preposition syntactically belongs with the noun group (NG) it precedes. Example: I don’t care for the parties. A prepositional object can co-occur with other objects in the sentence.
- Catenative Complement: A non-finite clause functioning as an internal complement of a verb. Two main patterns exist:
Catenative Constructions
Pattern 1: Simple catenative constructions, typically involving monotransitive verbs followed by ‘to-‘ or bare infinitives. Example: Kim decided to leave.
Juxtaposition: Adjacent asyndetic constructs linked by punctuation.
Apposition: Modification at the group/phrase level, representing a hypotactic relationship (non-restrictive or loose vs. restrictive or close).
Parataxis and That-Clauses
Parataxis is created by associating two or more semantically homogeneous components to form a superior unit with a semantic value and potentially different syntagmatic possibilities than its constituents. Key features include elements being free and functioning as whole units, having equal syntactic and semantic status, and often similar forms. Elements are usually reversible.
That-clause: Complement clauses as clause elements:
- Post-predicator: Example: We all agree that cuts are needed. Occurs as a direct object in various transitive constructions:
- Monotransitives with only a complement clause: Example: She decided that it was a hoax.
- Monotransitives with an optional prepositional phrase (PP): Example: I gather from Kim’s letter that you are going to Paris.
- Ditransitives: Example: You told me that you would help.
- Extraposed that-clause: Example: The reason he resigned was that he didn’t get on with the boss.
Relative, Comparative, and Adverbial Clauses
Relative Clauses: A post-modifier in a noun group (NG), expanding the meaning and specifying the reference of the head noun (antecedent). Introduced by a relative word (relativizer) with a specific syntactic function in the subclause or a group/phrase within it.
Comparatives: A comparative construction compares a meaning expressed in the main clause to a meaning in a dependent clause, with respect to some gradable or quantifiable element.
Adverbial Clauses: Introduced by a subordinating conjunction, explaining the clause’s adverbial meaning. Examples include when/before/after/while (time), because/since (reason), if/unless/lest (condition), etc. The subordinating conjunction indicates relationships of cause, concession, comparison, condition, place, manner, purpose, result, or time. Some conjunctions have multiple meanings, determined by examining the clause’s function.
Coordination
Coordination involves two or more members with equivalent grammatical functions, bound together at the same level of the structural hierarchy by a linking device. It represents a relation between syntactically equal elements (coordinates). Semantic implications of disjunction include exclusive, inclusive, restatement, and negative condition. Semantic implications of ‘but’ include adversative (replaceable by “in contrast”, “on the other hand”), replace/corrective (replaceable by “instead, rather”), and enhancing/concessive (expressing a logical opposition, meaning “yet”, “despite all that”).
Features of coordination include:
- Order change (elements can be reversed without affecting propositional meaning, though exceptions exist).
- Openedness (no grammatical limit to the number of elements).
- Range of occurrence (can occur in most places in a sentence).
- Reducibility (a coordinated structure is typically replaceable by any of its elements).
- Explicit markers and likeness of class and function (no change in function upon replacement; coordinates may need to belong to the same category).
Basic Coordination
Reflects the balance between coordinated elements by placing them at the same structural level, distinguishing coordination from subordination. In coordinated clauses, material from the secondary clause can be elided if identical to that of the primary clause. Example: She finished the report and went home. In coordinated noun groups (NGs), the determiner of the secondary NG can be elided if identical to that of the primary NG. Example: They found her son and younger daughter.
Non-Basic Coordination
Involves bound ellipsis, restructuring, and discontinuity.
- Gapping Type A: Different subjects; occurs when a second or subsequent join a coordination that contains middle ellipsis. The antecedent may be a sequence of elements. Example: Jill came to Fiji in 1967, and her parents the following year. A gapped coordinated clause need not contain a subject. Two types of gapped clauses with no subject exist: the gap may be followed by two elements, or there may be two gaps rather than one. Exceptionally, the gap may be in final position.
- Gapping Type B: Coordination of sequences that do not form syntactic constituents elsewhere. Example: I gave 10 dollars to Kim, and 5 to Pat. (non-constituent coordination).
- Restructuring: Delayed right constituency coordination implies a change in the normal constituent structure, usually marked by a prosodic break. At least one coordinate does not form a constituent in a corresponding non-coordination structure. Example: Jean has read, and Paul is planning to read, the complete works of Shakespeare.
- Discontinuity: Interpolated coordination arises when the second coordinate element is brought forward to appear as an interpolation within the first. This departure from basic word order typically serves to clarify or explain the context.
- Pseudo-coordination: When preceding “and”, members of a small class of verbs of predication have an idiomatic function similar to that of a catenative construction. Example: I will try and come tomorrow. “And” could be changed to “to”. In informal speech, some commentatory adjectives are used as the first conjoin of a coordination by “and”.
Iteration vs. Recursion
Basic common feature: structural repetition. Iteration (I) yields flat output structures that do not increase in depth. Example: He talked, talked, and talked. Recursion (R) builds structures by increasing embedding depth. Example: (the chair in the classroom in the school).
Hypotaxis and Subordination
Hypotaxis is the grammatical arrangement of functionally similar but “unequal” constructs. In Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), hypotaxis refers to the binding of elements of unequal status. The dominant element is free, while the dependent element is not. In a hypotactic structure, elements are ordered in dependence, largely independent of the sequence.
Subordination: A subordinate clause functions as dependent within a larger construction that is itself a clause or a constituent of one. A subordinate clause cannot stand alone. Example: They left before the meeting ended.
- Non-embedded Subordination: Both the subordinate and superordinate clauses are immediate sister-constituents of a sentence (complex sentences).
- Embedded Subordination: Subordinated clauses act as below-clause constituents (complex clauses). It is a mechanism where a clause or phrase functions as a constituent within the structure of a group, which itself is a constituent of a clause. By embedding, a unit can be used as a constituent of another unit of the same or lower rank on the rank scale.
Examples:
- Sentences that function as constituents of other sentences: I know she isn’t here.
- Sentences that function as constituents of phrases: …pleased you could come.
- Phrases that function as constituents of other phrases: …at the corner of the street.
- Words in the structure of other words: blackbird.
Non-finite Clauses: They have a non-tensed verb and may also differ in the form of the subject: Example: I didn’t approve of his/him doing it.